Vietnam News Sep 6
An extract. Chinese military officers visit Vietnam A delegation of the External Relations Department of the Communist Party of China Central Military Commission and People's Liberation Army led by Major General Zhan Maohai paid a visit to Vietnam from September 1-5. While in Vietnam, the Chinese military officers held talks with the External Relations Department of the Vietnam People's Army with the aim of promoting friendship between the two armies. The guests also visited the military command of zone 7 and a number of historic relics and landscapes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. (VNA) ___ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
Statement of Cuba's President at Millennium Summit-06 Sept 2000
Statement of Cuba's President at Millennium Summit-06 Sept 2000 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit ADDRESS BY DR. FIDEL CASTRO RUZ PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA MILLENNIUM SUMMIT UNITED NATIONS New York, September 6, 2000 Excellencies: There is chaos in our world, both within the countries' borders and beyond. Blind laws are offered like divine norms that would bring peace, order, well being and the security our planet so badly needs. That is what they would have us believe. Three dozen developed and wealthy nations that monopolize the economic, political and technological power have joined us in this gathering to offer more of the same recipes that have only served to make us poorer, more exploited and more dependent. There is not even discussion about a radical reform of this old institution over a half century ago when there were few independent nations-- to turn it into a true representative body of the interests of all the peoples on Earth-, an institution where no one would have the irritating and anti-democratic right of veto and where a transparent process could be undertaken to expand membership and representation in the Security Council, an executive body subordinated to the General Assembly, which should be the one making the decisions on such crucial issues as intervention and the use of force. It should be clearly stated that the principle of sovereignty cannot be sacrificed to an abusive and unfair order that a hegemonic superpower uses, together with its own might and strength, to try to decide everything by itself. That, Cuba will never accept. The poverty and underdevelopment prevailing in most nations as well as the inequality in the distribution of wealth and knowledge in the world are basically at the source of the present conflicts. It cannot be overlooked that current underdevelopment and poverty have resulted from conquest, colonization, slavery and plundering in most countries of the planet by the colonial powers and from the emergence of imperialism and the bloody wars motivated by new distributions of the world. Today, it is their moral obligation to compensate our nations for the damages caused throughout centuries. Humanity should be aware of what we have been so far and what we cannot continue to be. Presently, our species has enough accumulated knowledge, ethical values and scientific resources to move towards a new historical era of true justice and humanism. There is nothing in the existing economic and political order that can serve the interests of Humankind. Thus, it is unsustainable and it must be changed. Suffice it to say that the world population is already 6 billion, 80% of which live in poverty. Ages-old diseases from Third World nations such as malaria, tuberculosis and others equally lethal have not been eradicated while new epidemics like AIDS threaten to exterminate the population of entire nations. On the other hand, wealthy countries keep investing enormous amounts of money in the military and in luxurious items and a voracious plague of speculators exchange currencies, stocks and other real or fictitious values for trillions of dollars every day. Nature is being devastated. The climate is changing under our own eyes and drinking water is increasingly contaminated or scarce. The sources of man's seafood are being depleted and crucial non-renewable resources are wasted in luxury and triviality. Anyone understands that the United Nations basic role in the pressing new century is to save the world not only from war but also from underdevelopment, hunger, diseases, poverty and the destruction of the natural resources indispensable to human life. And it should do so promptly before it is too late! The dream of having truly fair and sensible rules to guide human destiny seems impossible to many. However, we are convinced that the struggle for the impossible should be the motto of this institution that brings us together today! Thank you. SOURCE: http:// www. un.org/ga/webcast/statments/ = NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] = nytcari-09.07.00-02:07:38-10009 Post comments to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send an email to subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this CubaNews group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ Kominform list for general information.
Belgian police repression of Fehriye's supporters
Brussels, September 6, 2000 THEY ARE AFRAID OF OUR SMOCKS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS ON THEM As part of the campaign "Freedom for Fehriye" which we started on August 5, we have conducted a hunger strike which was the target of a number of acts of arbitrary aggression. At the start, the Mayor of Brussels forbade all solidarity actions on the territory of Brussels. He thought in this way to undermine our sense of solidarity, underestimating our will to carry out such actions. He made a mistake. Although our request to set up tents to pursue our hunger strike was turned down, we found an alternative place: the Free University of Brussels. The Mayor hoped we would make less of an impact by isolating us in an enclosed space. He erred once again. In actual fact, every day, wearing smocks with the inscription "Freedom for Fehriye", hunger strikers went out into the streets of Brussels for eight or ten hours at a stretch, distributing leaflets. Fearing the contents of these leaflets, the justice of our demands and the strength of our solidarity and gripped by an arbitrary mentality belonging to another age, the PRL (a "liberal" party in Belgium) Mayor of Brussels, de Donnea, ordered the arrest of "the leaflet distributors who are wearing smocks". Thus he showed his powerlessness in the face of our solidarity and the indisputable justice of our demands. The bans and arrests result from nothing other than their fear of the opinions we hold. Henceforth, Brussels, which claims to be the capital of modern Europe, has been taking decisions worthy of the Inquisition. The ban on freedom of expression is more than just an anachronism, it also reveals bankruptcy in the face of any cause that is just. The roads of Brussels were characterised by tight surveillance and bans by the police and gendarmerie on anyone walking around in support of "freedom for Fehriye". We remained stubborn under all circumstances in the face of insults, primitive attacks and detention at the hands of police and gendarmes. Finally the Mayor gave way officially, forced to put a stop to such bans on freedom of expression. However, the forces of law and order lost none of their aggressiveness. In fact they intervened and prevented by force any distribution of leaflets in what they called a neutral zone, invoking the right to inviolability of the Senate, the Chamber of Representatives, the Ministries and other bureaucratic institutions. Since any march or demonstration in the neutral zone has always been banned, our leaflet distribution was banned under the same pretext. Dozens of police and gendarmerie patrols followed, attacked and arrested teams walking around in smocks and distributing leaflets on the grounds that they had violated the neutral zone, and sometimes even on the grounds that they might be about to! Every time this happened there was brutality in the police stations, with physical harassment accompanied by racist invective. This situation still persists. Our comrades have many times been the victims of such brutality. On September 5, seven of us were arrested and injured in several places, but despite an attempt to search us in a way harmful to our personal dignity, the sound of our slogans echoed through the walls of the police station. Once again, our smocks, the symbols of our resistance, were confiscated. No repression, no matter what form it takes, will be able to undermine our support for Fehriye. So our solidarity campaign will only end when she is granted the right to asylum. As for repression from the forces of law and order and their attempts to terrorise our solidarity actions, it is clear they will lead nowhere. While continuing legitimate methods of struggle, we will also continue to shout our slogan "Freedom for Fehriye". REPRESSION WILL NOT INTIMIDATE US IMMEDIATE RECOGNITION OF FEHRIYE'S RIGHT TO ASYLUM COMMITTEE FOR THE FREEDOM OF FEHRIYE ERDAL 197 rue Belliard 1040 Brussels Tel 02/ 280 2228 Fax 02/ 280 2229 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Turkish dam 'will rob 70,000 of their homes'
From: Press Agency Ozgurluk [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Guardian: Turkish dam 'will rob 70,000 of their homes' Special report: Labour's ethical foreign policy Paul Brown, environment correspondent Thursday September 7, 2000 A confidential report commissioned by the government into the controversial Ilisu dam project has revealed significant underestimates of the chaos and misery it would bring to tens of thousands of people. Up to 78,000 Kurdish people, around three times the number originally thought, will be made homeless and landless by the British-backed scheme in Turkey, according to the report seen by the Guardian. The report makes clear that thousands of already extremely poor people are at risk of "falling into greater destitution" if the government goes ahead with its plan to make £200m of taxpayers money available to contractors Balfour Beatty to allow the dam to be built. Reports that the government was dropping the dam project have been formally denied by Richard Caborn, the trade minister. He was writing to protesters on behalf of the prime minister, who has been threatened with high court action because damming the Tigris would alter the flow of water to Iraq and Syria without any consultation. His letter reiterating the British support for the project came on August 22, four days after the report on the flawed resettlement plan was sent to the Department of Trade and Industry by Ayse Kudat, 56, who is Turkish but has most recently been the World Bank's head of social development. The report, leaked yesterday to the Guardian, had been kept secret even though the department said it would make documents connected with the Ilisu project public. The report said the dam would inundate the most fertile irrigated land in the area where landlessness and poverty was already widespread. Half of the people did not grow crops but grazed animals on pasture, worked for cash payments and relied on subsistence gardening "to stay alive". The people who were forced to move would be at high risk of falling into greater destitution, Dr Kudat said. Dr Kudat was employed by the export credit agencies of the UK and other European countries to report on the Turkish plans to resettle Kurds in the area to be inundated. She said some of the area was not accessible because of Turkish military operations against the Kurds, but potentially the number of people affected was between 47,000 and 78,000 - up to three times the government's original estimate. The government made its support for the project conditional on a proper resettlement plan but Dr Kudat noted that many similar plans round the world had failed. She said sweeping institutional reforms were required in Turkey if there was to be any hope of an Ilisu plan working. "In the Turkish context, past failures have been particularly severe with respect to inadequate and inappropriate delivery of resettlement housing," she said. There had been a lack of concern for the well being of those forced to move, failure to consult them, and no monitoring of social impact. She said the Ilisu catchment already contained thousands of people displaced from previous projects who had not been properly settled or compensated for losing their homes. The coalition of environment and human rights groups opposing the dam said the report highlighted 10 serious problems with the Turkish resettlement plan which violated World Bank and OECD guidelines on financing such projects. These included Turkey's failure to provide a resettlement budget. Kerim Yildiz, a director of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, said: "This report clearly indicates that the Turkish government is in no position to fulfil even the basic conditions put forward by the UK government. "It provides more than enough evidence for the government to abandon this ill conceived and destructive project." A trade department spokesman confirmed that no decision had yet been made on whether the Ilisu project would be backed, but it was conditional on the resettlement plan being satisfactory. :%s///g -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey and Kurdistan http://www.ozgurluk.org DHKC: http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc ___ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
WSWS: Ex-RAF Man Joins Nazi's
WSWS : News Analysis : Europe : Germany Germany: Former left-wing radical Horst Mahler joins the neo-fascist NPD == By Max Rodenberg 1 September 2000 Berlin attorney Horst Mahler was a lawyer for the Extra-parliamentary Opposition (APO) at the end of the 1960s, joint founder of the Socialist German Student Federation (SDS) and a member of the terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF). Last weekend he applied to join the neo-fascist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). Mahler's membership application to the NPD followed a weeks-long campaign for a prohibition of the party. At a press conference in Bruchsal near Karlsruhe last Saturday, Mahler-in his own words an "opponent of the party-state"-called on all those for whom "Germany was close to their hearts", to "strengthen the patriotic front, by publicly joining the NPD without consideration for the consequences for their personal fate". "We must all act at present as if we were at war, and the German Reich [empire] now demands our contribution to defend the German people and requires personal sacrifice Now it is a matter of Germany and the German Reich; reservations or animosities should be set aside." Mahler comes from a solid middle-class family, and would probably have followed in their footsteps if the APO had not existed and there had not been a broad radicalisation of the younger generation at the end of the 1960s. The prerequisites for a middle-class lifestyle were there: Mahler, the son of a dentist, was born in 1936, three years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Following the family's flight from Silesia in 1945, they eventually moved to West Berlin in 1949. Mahler studied jurisprudence at the Freie Universität in Berlin, even gaining a scholarship. At this time he was also member of a schlagende Verbindung (a militaristic student fraternity). However, he then joined the SPD and became chairman of their youth organisation in Berlin Charlottenburg. Later, he was expelled from the party because of his membership in the SDS. After graduation, Mahler worked in one of the most renowned Berlin law offices. He soon started his own firm, specialising in medium-size businesses. When he took on more and more clients from the left-wing APO scene, and as a consequence lost his business customers, Mahler's legal career was at an end. He became joint founder of the first "socialist lawyers collective" and represented Rudi Dutschke, Rainer Langhans and others. In 1969, he defended Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, who went on to jointly form the RAF. Following the assassination of Rudi Dutschke at Easter 1968, Mahler took part in activities against the notorious right-wing Springer press. Despite various legal actions against Mahler under the emergency legislation imposed at the time, the public prosecutor's office did not succeed in disqualifying him from his profession. Following several criminal convictions in 1970-including a ten-month suspended sentence and a 75,000 mark fine-Mahler fled to Jordan with the recently released Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and others, where they trained as armed guerrilla fighters with the Palestinians. Mahler was arrested in Berlin two months later. In October 1972 in a dubious trial, he was finally condemned to 12 years imprisonment for "conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery in connection with the establishment of a criminal association and participation in the same". His exclusion from the bar followed in 1974. Mahler remained in detention until 1980. With the help of Gerhard Schroeder-the former SPD-Young Socialists chairman, later prime minister of Lower Saxony, and today Germany's federal chancellor, who acted as Mahler's legal counsel in 1978-he gained readmission as a lawyer in 1988 and was able to re-start his business practice in Berlin. The joint founder of the RAF had already become one of its critics during his detention. In 1977 he wrote that this had come from his "inner liberation from the dogmatic revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism". But his conversion went even further. In 1998, after 10 years of relative calm, Mahler surprised the public with a submission to the right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit, in which he revealed his new beliefs. In this article he drew a connection between the radical 1968 movement and the development of a new völkisch (German-nationalist) ideology . "The 1968 generation destroyed tradition and religion as world-shaping conceptions ... and brought our people a step nearer to maturity. The ground is only now ready for completing this enlightenment, which will simultaneously mean their surmounting. We experience this result of the cultural revolution of 1968 as Hell, since along with tradition and religion our moral substance has departed As a cultureless Volk [people] we live in a second Stone Age. It requires some effort of thought to really extinguish the mental vacuum-this condition
New Worker Online Digest - 8/9/2000
New Worker Online Digest Week commencing 8th September, 2000. 1) Editorial - Lottery danger. 2) Lead story - Crisis in our schools. 3) Feature article - Skills shortage leads to immigration policy rethink. 4) International story - Truckers bring France to a standstill. 5) British news item - A great day at Burston. 1) Editorial Lottery danger. THE news last week that another £47 million was going to keep the Millenium Dome solvent aroused fury in much of the capitalist press. Apart from the usual jibes against the Labour government from the Tory papers there was also a more general criticism of the whole idea of continuing to prop up the Dome. The money could, it's argued, be better spent. But this apparently attractive argument is fraught with danger. It encourages the idea that lottery money should be used to help the NHS and other public services in need of extra cash and undermines the lottery's original spending rules. So, what's wrong with that? Surely it would be better to help hospitals rather than the Dome? The problem is that the public services are the responsibility of the government and should be funded through a taxation system that is fair -- that is a system of income tax which takes most from those who have most. The lottery should not become an extra tax upon the poor, albeit a voluntaly one, while the wealthy continue to be let off the hook. At present the unjust tax levels of the former Tory governments still apply. The rich continue to benefit from a tax system which is grossly weighted in their favour. Top levels of tax need to be raised -- not lowered even further. Once lottery money is allowed to supplement government funding for vital services like the NHS it will quickly become a regular practice and eventually a normal part of the budget. The government of the day could then consider cutting taxes on the rich even further. It is interesting that in the recent contest for control of the lottery it was the bid put in by Richard Branson that seemed favoured. This was the bid that boasted of making more money available for "good causes". Could it be that the Treasury has its eyes on this money and that the media is just softening us up for yet another method of taking from the poor to give to the rich? * 2) Lead story Crisis in our schools. by Daphne Liddle THE START of the new school year this week revealed the most serious shortage of teachers in our classrooms in England and Wales for over two decades. In London alone there are vacancies for 1,000 leachers. Research from the National Union of Teachers published last week has revealed head teachers resorting to desperate measures to try to ensure that every class has a teacher. They are using unqualified and untrained teachers, including technicians. New staff are being appointed without even being interviewed. Teachers are being sought in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In some cases the curriculum is being modified to fit the staff available. And class sizes are growing. "When push comes to shove," said one headteacher, "you've got to put a body in front of the class. So long as you know they are not going to kill a child or maim them, what choice do we have?" Another said: "I was in great danger of losing the teachers of the two other classes due to stress and violence, so we took on this lady after a 20-minute interview on the phone to Australia. It was an act of faith." Government figures show all schools fully staffed but the NUT has found that at the end of last term 10 per cent of all teaching posts fell vacant in those schools surveyed and four per cent of posts are still vacant. This is three years into a Government that promised us "education, education, education". And it is a crisis that has been predicted over and over by teaching unions who have warned that pay and conditions are worsening as more and more burdens are laid on teachers. Teachers have been repeatedly insulted and ignored. They have been made scapegoats for an abysmally funded education system. They have been forced to compete in exam league tables and now they have had perform ance pay imposed to set each teacher in competition with their colleagues. This year has seen yet another improvement in GCSE and A level results. But far from being congratulated, the teachers and hard working pupils have been told this must mean the exams are getting easter. Chris Woodhead, the leader of the Government watchdog Ofsted, has insulted teachers and students by saying: "We need A levels that are as academically rigorous as they have ever been. Indeed I would like them to be more rigorous. "As standards rise in schools then we ought, in our public examinations, to be looking to raise the level of demand at all levels as well. "Let's preserve A levels that really do stretch the intellectually most able but let's recognise that such qualifications are only
Yugoslavia. NATO LIES!
Forward from mart. Please distribute widely. From: John Clancy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: September 7, 2000 5:05 PM * The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, September 6th, 2000. CPA Central Committee: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The Guardian": [EMAIL PROTECTED] Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au * Lies, lies and damned lies "Serb killing exaggerated by the West", said the headline of the London BIGuardian" (18/8/00). The paper's subheading said itmore forcefully and underscored the enormity of the lie: "Claims of up to 100,000 ethnic Albanians massacred in Kosovo revised to under 3,000 as exhumations near end." by Bob Petrovich Think of what this has to mean to Madeleine Albright, James Rubin, and Jamie Shea. They didn't pull this off single-handedly. Not only the US Government, but the worldwide media fabricated a "genocide" and, on that basis, launched a savage war against asovereign nation, that had never attacked us, in the name of "humanitarianism -- a war, I might add, that was stopped but has not ended. Where are the bodies, all 100,000 of them? This became the task of the "war crimes experts", as the "Guardian" describes them: to produce what never existed in the first place -- a task that naturally had to end in failure. The "Guardian" reports: "As war crimes experts from Britain and other countries prepare to wind down the exhumation of hundreds of graves in Kosovo on behalf of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, officials concede they have not borne out the worst wartime reports. "These were given by refugees and repeated by Western government spokesmen during the campaign. They talked of indiscriminate killings and as many as 100,000 civilians missing or taken out of refugee columns by the Serbs." It was lies, all lies, from beginning to end. They may have originated from government sources, in most cases, but in spreading these lies far and wide the Western media were more than willing accomplices. Keeping in mind that over 5,000 civilians were slaughtered in the NATO air strikes, the ladies and gentlemen of the [media] might fairly be characterised as Madeleine's willing executioners. Based on the myth of an Albanian Kosovar "holocaust" perpetrated by the Serbs, not only Milosevic and his regime but also the entire Serbian people are condemned. Here was classic war propaganda, on a par with stories of Belgian babies impaled on German bayonets during World War I and tall tales told during the Gulf war of babies dumped out of incubators and gasping for breath on the floor of a Kuwaiti hospital. The idea is to get public opinion behind the complete subjugation and "re-education" of the Serbian people, utilising the post-war German model. In the case of the Kosovo war, the retreat has already begun. Fartoo late to help the victims of the vicious "Allied" air war: they are dead and buried, or else mutilated beyond repair. Yet we are still waiting for some acknowledgment from the media that they were wrong. Endless horror stories illustrated with fantastically high death tolls were aired day after day on CNN but when will we hear a retraction? Christiane Amanpour [CNN reporter -- Ed] repeated her husband's lies with a perfectly straight face: tens of thousands slaughtered, we were told, and the murderous drug-dealing KLA were really "freedom fighters". Journalists didn't question the US Government line about alleged äSerbian "genocide": instead they wanted to know if the President would send in the ground troops, and if not, why not? Phillip Knightley who has written on wartime propaganda in his book "The First Casualty" said recently: "Usually the truth about what has really happened during a war will emerge after it is over. Sometimes it takes years and years. But sometimes the truth surfaces quite quickly. "Within little more than a year after the Gulf War we knew that the claims for the pinpoint accuracy of Allied air strikes and the ability of the Patriot missiles to intercept Iraqi missiles were all nonsense. "Within two years we knew that many of the atrocity stories attributed to the Iraqis -- American public relations companies working for the Kuwaiti Government, for example -- had invented the incubator babies story. "But, of course, by then it was too late to make any difference to the outcome of the war, and the media caravan had moved on. We are learning only now that the CIA helped train the Kosovo Liberation Army before the bombing began. We did not realise at the time that NATO was lying when it said it did not deliberately attack civilian targets. There will be a lot more, believe me." If, by some chance, the truth about Kosovo gets out, how will the American [and Australian? -- Ed] people react to the
Political prisoner in USA: Message from Leonard Peltier/Fund drive update
*Additional note from the LPDC attached after message* (dictated by phone from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary) Dear brothers and sisters, friends and supporters, I just want to thank everyone for their contributions toward this year's clemency effort. I know a lot of people think that the LPDC has access to sizeable funding due to the support we have from many affluent people, but in reality, our movement has always been a grass roots movement. And, I have learned all too well over the years that the only people we can depend on to struggle and sacrifice for what is right, is each other. We are the ones who do not have much to lose, unlike many who enjoy luxuries and a life style we could never even imagine having access to. However, I know that that means every penny you have donated has not come easy and I want you to know that I very much appreciate your heart felt help. The LPDC tells me that we have now raised $17,053 and that we are close to being able to hire the PR firm who we so desperately need at this time. They are the people with the connections we need, both among the media and in Washington DC, and I cannot express to you how important their help is. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, my friends for your support. We could not do it without you. You continue to give me hope for a happy ending to this year's struggle. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Leonard Peltier LPDC NOTE: We want to remind everyone that the fund drive is set to end on Leonard Peltier's birthday, which is only 5 days away! Our total fund raising goal is $50,000, which means we still have $28,000 to raise. If you are in a position to contribute any amount, and have not gotten around to sending in that donation yet, now is the time to do it! Let's get as close as we possibly can to reaching our goal on Leonard's birthday. If each of Leonard's supporters donated just a small amount, we would have enough to really pump up this fight! Thank you very much for your continued support and help. PS We are waiting for the new sweatshirts to come in. For those of you who donated $100, you will receive your gift sweatshirt as soon as we get them in! Thanks for your patience. Print this form, and send it in with your donation: COUNTDOWN TO CLEMENCY! LEONARD PELTIER JUSTICE CAMPAIGN, YEAR 2000 YES! I want to contribute to the emergency fund drive and help gain freedom for this innocent man! Name Phone #___ Address Enclosed is my contribution for: ___$25 Please send my free years sub of Spirit of Crazy Horse News to the above address ___$50 Please send a copy of Prison Writings, My Life Is My Sundance by L. Peltier ___$100 Please send my Free Peltier sweatshirt to the above address ___$150 Please send a What About Joe poster to my above address ___$500 Please send me one numbered print of ___Grandma Jumping Bull, ___Spirit of the Bear ___Big Mountain Lady ___$1000 Please send me a full set of the above prints a signed copy of In the Spirt of Crazy Horse a hand beaded necklace made by Leonard Peltier an Oasis in the Badlands (an Edward Curtis lithograph donated by Christopher Cardozo, Inc) ___$5000 Please an original Peltier oil painting. TITLE: ___Other, I have enclosed a contribution of $ __. NOTE: With the exception of Prison Writings and oil paintings by Leonard Peltier, all gifts will be available during this fund drive only. Donations over $100 are tax deductible, but checks must be made out to Global Exchange, our 501C3 fiscal sponsor, with c/o LPDC in the memo. All other checks can be made out to LPDC directly. All donations should be sent to our address. Thank you for your generous contributions. LPDC, PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044. Call the White House Comments Line Today Demand Justice for Leonard Peltier! 202-456- Be in New York City December 10th Peltier March For Freedom! Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-842-5774 www.freepeltier.org To subscribe, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your email address, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your old address in the Subject line - To subscribe, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your email address, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your old address in the Subject: line ___ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66
Yugoslavia, Iraq; Rumors of War
From: "F J BERNAL" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute
Benjamin C. Works, Director
202 257-0157; www.siri-us.com;
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil--
STRATEGIC ISSUES TODAY
SIT-REP 9-7: Sept. 7, 2000
Iraq, Yugoslavia: Rumors of Wars
Sterling, Virginia -- No, SIRIUS has not curled up its toes. It has
re-deployed to the Washington, DC area ("the Emerald City of Oz")
where we can keep a close eye on developments across the board.
I used to use an alternate motto for the institute: "Outside the
Beltway, but in the Loop." As of this weekend that will no longer be
true as SIRIUS will be locating itself in Arlington, Virginia --inside
the Beltway and just down the street from the Pentagon. Within
another week or so, SIRIUS should be up and running and back at
100%,
but may be off line for a few days as the local phone company is
recovering from a major strike, affecting the pace of new
installations.
To the point(s).
Clitnon's Legacy, Iraq Yugoslavia --Rumors of War:
Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled;
for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. St
Matthew 24: 6-7
Many have been rumoring about potential last minute warlike actions by
the Clinton Administration; maybe Yugoslavia, maybe Iraq; but I do not
have the feeling in my guts that Mr. Clinton wants an uncontrolled
bombing campaign at the last minute. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein
may be trying to strain the system in his own inconvenient way.
Today, Mr. Clinton is trying to talk the Saudis into lowering oil
prices --it has crossed over $35 per barrel today (a barrel equals 42
gallons or about 160 liters). Mr. Clinton's team has been trying to
lower oil prices since the Spring; instead prices continue to climb
and Mr. Clinton's present initiative is too late to drive prices down
before Winter. But since both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have
experience in oil and oil-related industries, the high prices do not
advantage the Republican ticket, since Al Gore's campaign can
characterize the GOP's leaders as pawns for "big oil."
The point is, if the US finds it has to bomb Iraq now, oil prices will
tend to rise further, something Mr. Clinton wants to avoid since it
might throw the stock market (back near its all-time highs) and the US
economy into a tailspin and possible recession. If any world leader is
prepared to discommode Mr. Clinton at the last minute, it is Saddam.
My advice, keep your gas tank filled.
Mr. Clinton wants a high-profile peace deal for his legacy, but
Israeli-Palestinian peace seems out of reach. It appears that both
sides may be ready to wait for a new administration.
Analysis:
It is only about 60 days until the US election --and only about 17
until the Yugoslavian Presidential Election-- and our Mr. Clinton, the
world's preeminent narcissist, is desperately seeking a big coup for
his "legacy" before he leaves office on Jan. 20th next year, about 134
days from now.
In the past few weeks and in more recent days, various correspondents,
other analysts and I have picked up many threads of the possible
"legacy" initiatives Mr. Clinton may attempt to complete in the waning
days of his leadership. War or peace? An "October surprise?"
I think in terms of the rational objective vs. the political
subjective; of the relative power of perception over reality: Mr.
Clinton's demonstrated forte has been to muster perception to
overwhelm reality and now, Mr. Gore is offering more of the same
- --four years more, if he wins.
Of course, "inductive reasoning" is the practice of fitting selected
facts to a theory that is born of personal prejudice. In its extreme
practice, inductive reasoning is the basis for demonization campaigns
and for conspiracy theory. Numbers can usually be found to demonstrate
a statistical correlation that is held up as proof; though
"correlation does not equal causation." The allure of inductive
reasoning is that "everything fits" and that it uses sophistry and
rhetorical techniques to seduce its audience into accepting its
proffered truths. It appeals to ignorance, egoism and emotion.
Deductive reasoning --the "scientific method" is slower as it requires
that one gathers all the available facts and then test theories. It
demands that statistical support show that the numbers demonstrate
causation, not mere correlation (coincidence). Deductive reasoning is
good for policy but bad for politics as its slowness is not responsive
to the "news cycle."
So what, you ask? These principles are important to keep in our minds
precisely because propaganda is based on inductive reasoning and
because we have seen it used repeatedly to justify interventions and
military assaults repeatedly in the last eight years. On the domestic
side, the same holds true; inductive reasoning is the basis for the
"divide and rule" politics of the majority of
Libya News and Views Sep 8
Friday, 8 September, 2000: Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi expressed optimism Thursday that Libya's strained relations with the United States could be eased and normal ties restored. ``I believe there is nothing which prevents the resuming or normalizing of relations between the twocountries,'' Qadhafi told CNN in a live interview. ``It is now a new era,'' Qadhafi said. America should ``reconsider its imperialist approach, because it does not fit with the new era and it will fail in the end,'' he added. Qadhafi sharply attacked the United Nations when he was asked about being absent from the worldwide U.N. summit ongoing in New York. ``Do you expect me to cross the Atlantic Ocean to speak for five minutes? The U.N. is not real now; when it is reformed, we would think of talking there,'' he said. [AP] Friday, 8 September, 2000: The council of governors of Arab central banks and monetary institutions is to hold its 24th meeting in Tripoli, Libya next Saturday. According to the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA, the meeting will discuss recommendations of the ninth meeting of banking monitory committee for the Arab monetary fund and the unified Arab economic report of the current year in addition to development of monetary and financial policies in Arab countries last year. [ArabicNews.Com] Friday, 8 September, 2000: Police in the Central African Republic have arrested four suspects in connection with the killing of the Libyan ambassador in the capital, Bangui, ten days ago. Reports said two of the suspects are Cameroonian, one a national of the Central African Republic and the other a European, believed to be a Frenchman. Police said investigations were continuing into the death of the diplomat Al Sanussi Abdullah Awad, who was shot by gunmen as he left his home. Libya has accused agents of being behind the killing. [BBC] Friday, 8 September, 2000: Libyan leader Mu'mmar al-Qadhafi said Thursday that Libya's negotiators in the Philipinne hostage drama will continue to do their best to achieve the release of all the captives. Asked in an interview on US satellite network CNN about Libya's position on US hostage Jeffrey Schilling Qadhafi said: "We do not differentiate between American and other hostages -- we do our best to release all the hostages." On the issue of money being paid for development aid in return for the release of hostages, he said: "It is not a question of money." If it were, he said, there were others who have more money to pay. "It is a question of moral influence. Libya has supported the rights of the minority in the Philippines, as it has supported the rights of minorities all around the world," he continued. [AFP] ___ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
