>
>16. The unarmed security guard was shot dead in a scuffle
>after he angrily rebuffed two undercover cops who asked to
>buy marijuana.
>
>At the time of his death, Patrick Dorismond was the fourth
>unarmed Black man to be shot by police in a year.
>
>A broad coalition of progressive groups called the Haitian
>Justice Coalition is calling for a mass march across the
>Brooklyn Bridge on April 20. The date is the 10-year
>anniversary of the first Haitian community protest in New York
>over how they were being scapegoated for the AIDS crisis.
>
>The coalition is calling for a demonstration that will
>shut down City Hall and Wall Street to protest police
>brutality and killings. Several planning meetings have
>already been held to develop the call and plan the route.
>
>The political reaction to the shooting of Patrick Dorismond
>has continued to grow.
>
>On March 18, 1,000 people marched through midtown Manhattan
>and block ed traffic in Herald Square to protest the killing.
>Passersby along the route of march applauded, cheered and some
>joined in.
>
>Police attacked members of a demonstration of close to
>20,000 angry Haitians and their allies who took part in
>Dorismond's funeral procession in Brooklyn on March 25.
>Demonstrators shouted slogans against the NYPD, Mayor Rudolph
>Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir.
>
>The protest escalated into a rebellion against the cops.
>Twenty-seven people were arrested--including an 80-year-old
>man and a pregnant woman who police brutally dragged by her
>hair.
>
>WIDESPREAD CRITICISM OF POLICE
>
>A strong stand by Haitian pastors on March 30 reflected the
>outrage still seething in New York's Haitian community.
>
>Fifteen Haitian clergymen, including Dorismond's pastor, met
>with Commission er Safir. They demanded an apology for the
>shooting death and an official statement of condolence for
>Dorismond's family.
>
>When Safir stonewalled and wouldn't issue a statement, the
>clergy walked out--just as Giuliani showed up with
>photographers.
>
>The clergy held a press conference outside One Police
>Plaza to express their bitterness at how the meeting with
>the police commissioner was manipulated. In their written
>statement, the pastors said they wanted Safir to apologize
>for "the misrepresentation of [Dorismond's] character
>subsequent to his death, and the further grief, aggravation
>and public embarrassment caused to his family.
>
>"We demand further that a public apology be made to the
>Haitian American community and to people of color in
>general for the experience of racial profiling."
>
>Even before his cops killed Dorismond, Giuliani's support
>among the African American community had sunk extremely low in
>the political fallout after the Diallo verdict. A poll last
>month showed just 8 percent of Black people here have a
>favorable view of the mayor. Only 4 percent say they will vote
>for Giuliani in the upcoming U.S. Senate election.
>
>More recent polls indicate that Giuliani's support in
>Black communities has dropped even lower and that the vast
>majority of all people living in the city of New York feel
>that he has handled the Dorismond case badly.
>
>Giuliani stoked public anger further when he released and
>then greatly exaggerated Dorismond's police arrest sheet,
>including a sealed juvenile record.
>
>In a recent poll the Mayor's approval rating dropped to 45
>percent. It was 54 percent last September.
>
>LABOR COUNCIL CRITICAL OF GIULIANI
>
>On March 27 the New York Central Labor Council held a press
>conference to discuss "the fear and skepticism that working
>families have towards police policy in our city." They are
>going to form a committee that will work to defuse the "tinder
>box atmosphere" in the city, produced by the police shooting
>unarmed Black workers.
>
>The hospital union 1199-SEIU, which has a significant
>number of Haitian workers in its ranks, also had a major
>contingent in the March 25 demonstration.
>
>Council President Brian McLaughlin commented on the Patrick
>Dorismond shooting. McLaughlin is a New York State Assembly
>representative and a member of a construction union, Local 3
>of the Electrical Workers. He said, "To have the court-sealed
>record of a teen revealed by the mayor of our city is not only
>reprehensible and unconscionable in besmirching and demeaning
>a dead man, but is also a dereliction of his civic
>responsibilities--and an affront to the working class of our
>city."
>
>The Labor Council has traditionally represented the
>political views of predominantly white construction unions
>in New York, which have provided its leadership. However,
>the union movement as a whole now is much more
>multinational.
>
>The Committee to Protect Journalists, which responds to
>attacks on the press all over the world, announced on March 28
>that it was investigating reports that WBAI-Pacifica radio
>producer Errol Maitland was beaten by the NYPD. Maitland was
>injured and then arrested while broadcasting live during the
>police attack on protesters at Dorismond's funeral.
>
>Maitland was still in the coronary intensive care unit of a
>Brooklyn hospital on April 3. He was admitted after suffering
>chest pains and shortness of breath, a WBAI statement said.
>Maitland spent 48 hours shackled to a hospital bed under
>police guard.
>
>A representative of CPJ said the nonprofit group rarely
>focuses on the United States but was "taking these
>allegations seriously and following this case."
>
>At a WBAI press conference March 28, Michael Warren--an
>attorney representing Maitland--said, "What we have here
>is, in effect, a criminal enterprise.
>
>"We have a systematic criminal enterprise where the policy
>is to intimidate, harass, and physically assault people of
>color in this city. And it all flows from City Hall."
>
> - 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: <009001bfa17f$94120270$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Tribunal finds U.S./NATO guilty of war crimes
>Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 13:26:30 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 13, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA:
>TRIBUNAL FINDS U.S./NATO GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES
>
>By John Catalinotto
>Belgrade, Yugoslavia
>
>[Catalinotto represented the International Action Center
>on the team of prosecutors for the Belgrade tribunal.]
>
>The third hearing of the International Peoples Tribunal
>initiated in Russia by the All-Slavic Assembly was held in
>Belgrade March 27-29. The tribunal coincided with the
>anniversary of the start of the U.S./NATO bombing of
>Yugoslavia. The panel of judges found NATO leaders guilty
>of violations of international law regarding rules of war.
>
>The tribunal heard 12 Yugoslav eyewitnesses' and experts'
>testimony regarding NATO war crimes in targeting the
>civilian population, the economic infrastructure and the
>environment of Yugoslavia.
>
>The Yugoslav witnesses used videos and computer slides to
>illustrate their testimony. Pictures showed the civilian
>areas destroyed on April 6, 1999, when five NATO missiles
>hit Aleksinac, a small mining community. Seventeen
>civilians were killed and more than 400 homes were
>destroyed. There is no military infrastructure in or near
>the residential area that was bombed.
>
>Neda Stanisovcevic, a reporter from the Yugoslav news
>agency Tanjug, provided an eyewitness account of the April
>6 and May 27 attacks on Aleksinac. The NATO commanders were
>determined to pressure the Yugoslav population to end the
>war so that the brass could avoid launching a risky ground
>invasion of Kosovo.
>
>The first hearing in this International Peoples Tribunal
>(IPT) was held in the Russian city Yaroslavl on Dec. 14.
>The second was held in Kiev on Jan. 23 in the parliamentary
>building of the Ukrainian capital. The next one is planned
>for Minsk, capital of Belarus, for sometime in April. It
>will focus on NATO crimes against humanity.
>
>Since the overturning of the USSR in 1991, people in the
>countries that were former republics of the Soviet Union
>have been under pressure from the West to surrender their
>independence--and their raw materials and labor force--to
>the imperialist banks.
>
>The eastward expansion of NATO, and especially the bombing
>attack on Yugoslavia, has awakened a need in these
>countries to defend themselves from this new form of
>aggression. The awakening in turn has led groups and
>individuals to form the IPT as a first step in mobilizing
>resistance to NATO expansion.
>
>IPT organizers have been coordinating their efforts with
>the Commission of Inquiry on U.S./NATO War Crimes Against
>Yugoslavia--organized by the International Action Center
>and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark--and with the
>Berlin-based European Preparatory Committee for the
>International Tribunals.
>
>The IAC participated in the Belgrade tribunal as part of
>the team of prosecutors; two of the Berlin organizers
>served as judges.
>
>COMMITTEES DREW UP SIMILAR CHARGES
>
>Although the three groups began their work independently,
>the charges that they formulated against U.S. and NATO
>leaders were remarkably similar. This in itself indicates
>that U.S./NATO crimes were blatant and obvious to anyone
>who had resisted the brainwashing of the establishment
>media in the NATO countries.
>
>Prof. Mikhail Kuznetsov of Moscow chaired the hearing and
>led the large Russian delegation. Another large delegation
>came from Ukraine, led by Socialist Party deputy Vil
>Nikolayich Romashenko. Participants also came from Belarus,
>Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Afghanistan, Mexico and Canada.
>
>Among the many distinguished personalities taking part in
>the tribunal were cosmonaut Vitali I. Sevastianov, who
>circled the earth in orbit over 100 times in 1970 and again
>in 1975; retired Soviet Admiral Anatoli Yurkovsky, now a
>member of the Ukrainian parliament; and Russian philosopher
>Alexander Zinoviev.
>
>The tribunal was organized to allow prosecutors and
>witnesses to make their statements. Then defense or
>prosecuting attorneys and any member of the panel of judges
>could ask follow-up questions. The prior week the tribunal
>had invited the accused--U.S. President Bill Clinton,
>British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor
>Wolfgang Schroeder, and other political and military
>leaders of NATO countries--to appear before the tribunal.
>
>The testimony of many participants from East European
>countries and the former Soviet Union showed detailed
>historical knowledge about U.S. and West European
>geopolitical interests in East Europe, the Balkans, the
>Caucasus and Central Asia--including the oil-rich Caspian
>Sea region. They also expressed full solidarity with the
>struggle of the Yugoslav people against NATO bombing and
>sanctions.
>
>At least a dozen Yugoslav witnesses presented evidence of
>thousands of civilians killed and injured from the
>bombings, of whom about 30 percent of the killed and 40
>percent of the injured were children. They also told of the
>use of outlawed cluster bombs in civilian areas, attacks on
>television broadcast stations in Belgrade and Novi Sad.
>
>They told too of the unspeakable damage to the environment
>from bombing the industrial zone of Pancevo, near Belgrad,
>and of the oil refineries of Novi Sad. Oil spills and
>chemical flows poisoned the air, the soil, ground water and
>spread throughout the vast Danube river.
>
>On March 29, after all the evidence was presented and the
>jury had time to deliberate, Professor Kuznetsov read the
>verdict: NATO leaders were found guilty of war crimes.
>
>The German committee is preparing a hearing in Hamburg for
>April 16, to focus on crimes committed by the German
>regime. A Europe-wide hearing is scheduled for Berlin on
>June 2-3.
>
>The U.S. Commission of Inquiry has set June 10 in New York
>for a daylong final International Tribunal on U.S./NATO War
>Crimes Against Yugoslavia.
>
> - 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: <009601bfa17f$aaecfe00$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] WW story on Kosovo mines chosen for journalism award
>Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 13:27:08 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 13, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>PROJECT CENSORED:
>WW STORY ON KOSOVO MINES CHOSEN FOR JOURNALISM AWARD
>
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>Project Censored has chosen a story first published in
>Workers World on the mine riches of the Serbian province of
>Kosovo as one of the most important stories suppressed in
>1999.
>
>The story actually first broke in Workers World newspaper
>in 1998. It was reprinted a year later in the publication
>"Because People Matter."
>
>Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action
>Center and a frequent contributor to Workers World
>newspaper, wrote an article in the July 30, 1998, issue
>about how the Trepca mines and refineries, worth $5
>billion, were targets of the appetites of big business in
>the major NATO countries. Flounders' article was entitled,
>"It's about the mines."
>
>Her article--together with one by Diana Johnstone on "The
>role of Caspian Sea oil in the Balkan conflict," printed in
>Women Against Military Madness, and one by Pratap
>Chatterjee on "Caspian pipe dreams" in the San Francisco
>Bay Guardian--was named as the sixth most important
>censored story of the year.
>
>Project Censored states its purpose is to explore and
>publicize the extent of censorship in U.S. society "by
>locating stories about significant issues of which the
>public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or
>another. Thereby, the project hopes to stimulate
>responsible journalists to provide more mass media coverage
>of those issues and to encourage the general public to
>demand mass media coverage of those issues or to seek
>information from other sources."
>
>The top story was about how "multinational corporations
>profit from international brutality." Coming in second was
>a story on how "pharmaceutical companies put profits before
>need."
>
>Two of the top 10 stories have to do with the U.S./NATO
>war against Yugoslavia and two others involve reports on
>U.S. militarism or armaments.
>
>Project Censored named 25 most important censored articles
>of the year in all. The authors of the top 10 censored
>stories will appear at the April 12 awards ceremonies at
>the Fordham University Law Building on West 62nd Street
>between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues in Manhattan. The
>event begins at 7 p.m.
>
> - 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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