> WW News Service Digest #102
>
> 1) Report from south Korea's Vieques
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) Solidarity against U.S. aggression prevails at World Peace Assembly
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) Mumia and the death penalty
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) Emergency actions for Shaka Sankofa
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) French strike: No money, no sales
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) Washington schemes to keep Vieques base
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 7) Editorial: Shoot the moon
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 8) Letters to WW
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 1, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>REPORT FROM SOUTH KOREA:
>FROM KWANGJU TO SEOUL, IT'S "U.S. TROOPS OUT!"
>
>By Deirdre Griswold
>Maehyang-ri, south Korea
>
>Villagers remember when there used to be three small
>wooded islands in the sea here on the southwestern coast of
>Korea. Now there are two, and they are barren.
>
>On the mainland, neat terraces of rice and green
>vegetables still slope gently down to the shore near the
>town of Maehyang-ri, which means "warm village" in Korean.
>On a quiet day, you can see a farmer here and there tending
>to his crops. But there are not many quiet days.
>
>For 50 years, since the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty
>of 1951, this piece of coast has been designated as a
>practice bombing range for the U.S. military. As often as
>400 times a day, 250 days a year, A-10 Warthogs and other
>planes come thundering in from Osan Air Force Base, just
>two minutes' flight time away, to drop their bomb loads on
>the little islands offshore. One island has now been
>completely obliterated.
>
>Sometimes the bombers miss their target.
>
>On May 8 of this year, a warplane experiencing
>difficulties jettisoned six bombs. They blew up all at once
>near the beach, cracking walls in homes throughout the area
>and terrifying the population. There was indignation
>throughout south Korea.
>
>On a bluff overlooking the islands stands a community
>building covered with slogans in Korean. One reads: "Move
>training area into Seoul near Congress." Others say:
>"Maehyang village residents' human rights are disregarded.
>U.S. troops are very bad. They take our sky, land, and sea
>and destroy it. We want them to move."
>
>KOREA'S VIEQUES
>
>A week after the bombing accident, a group of visitors
>climbed a rickety ladder to the flat roof of the building,
>where they had a clear view of a machine gun practice range
>below and the islands beyond. Chun Mankyu of the local
>Committee to Close the U.S. Aircraft Range in Maehyang
>explained what had been happening there.
>
>"This area used to be so beautiful. There were so many
>plum trees that the scent would overwhelm the village. The
>islands looked like three turtles. Birds laid their eggs
>there, and our people would harvest them. There were many
>clams in the sand at low tide.
>
>"Now the clams are gone. The shore is full of bomb shells
>and oil from napalm bombs. Once a pregnant woman was killed
>by a bomb she picked up on the shore. A 12-year-old girl
>and her mother who were clamming were injured by shrapnel.
>That area is now fenced off."
>
>It is Korea's Vieques.
>
>And like the people of that Puerto Rican island, the
>villagers here are fed up. For years they have been
>protesting, at great risk.
>
>In 1967, when the military dictatorship of Gen. Park Chung
>Hee gave the land here outright to the U.S. military to
>establish the Koon-ni Bombing Range, people lay down in
>front of the bulldozers. They were being forced to seek
>permission from the U.S. commander to farm on their own
>land. They had to pay rent to the U.S. military and were
>allowed to work their land only on weekends, when there
>were no bombing runs.
>
>Chun Mankyu remembers those days. "We were so poor we
>sometimes had to eat bark. Now many of the people around
>here work in the Kia auto factory, even though they try to
>do some farming, too.
>
>"The bombings were very intense during the Gulf War, and
>again at the time of Kosovo. The mental stress was
>terrible. We had a high rate of suicide."
>
>Chun's own father had killed himself. "That's when I
>started the committee. I was working in Saudi Arabia when
>he died, and I came back home. But I didn't have enough
>money to move anywhere else, so I settled here.
>
>"People at that time were afraid that if they spoke up,
>they'd be called sympathetic to north Korea. But after the
>democracy movement started, people started speaking out. In
>early 1987, young people got the courage to protest our
>conditions. I went to Kimpo [Seoul's international airport]
>and met with the group there that was protesting noise
>pollution. We got up a petition in the village.
>
>"There was no response from the government on safety
>issues, so the people actually went to the firing range and
>said, `Bomb me.' Some 1,500 out of 2,700 villagers occupied
>the bombing range and islands. It happened on Dec. 12,
>1988. The date was in commemoration of my father's death."
>
>VILLAGERS BATTLED 1,700 POLICE
>
>The government sent in 1,700 police armed with steel
>pipes. In the battle that followed, 19 people were injured-
>-but the villagers were able to burn down the range's
>control tower and targets and destroy all the electrical
>equipment at the Koon-ni base.
>
>The U.S. Air Force sent in a special task force from Osan
>Air Base to arrest Chun and two others. They spent eight
>months in jail.
>
>As Chun told his story to a group of visitors, several
>police cars pulled up on the quiet country road. The
>uniformed officers hung around outside the community
>center.
>
>Among the visitors was U.S. peace activist Brian Willson,
>an Air Force veteran who turned against the Vietnam War
>after being assigned the job of assessing bomb damage to
>Vietnamese villages. Willson listened closely as Chun
>described the A-10 bombing runs.
>
>"A-10s are tank killers," he said. "Today, this means they
>use depleted uranium-coated weapons. Depleted uranium
>produces a powder on impact that is toxic and radioactive.
>Has the military here said whether they use such weapons?"
>
>Chun became excited. There had been an increase in birth
>defects in the area. Down by the beach, the military had
>posted a sign, "This bomb/gunnery range floor is subject to
>hazardous materials. Do not attempt to remove or pickup any
>unknown items. Serious injury could result. If items are
>found please contact Ranger personnel."
>
>The visitors walked down to the beach. The tide was out,
>and the sand was littered with piles of bombshells
>collected by villagers. One of them bore the initials
>"BDU."
>
>The visitors, who were part of an international delegation
>invited by the National Alliance for Democracy and the
>Reunification of Korea, spoke to a local television crew
>also at the site. The next day the charge that the U.S.
>might be using depleted uranium broke in the media
>throughout south Korea.
>
>At first the U.S. military refused to admit it had DU
>weapons in the country. But after the NADRK organized
>several press conferences at which Willson and others
>showed how Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon had admitted
>in 1997 that the military was moving its DU weapons from
>Japan to south Korea, they had to come clean. Yes, the
>military officers finally admitted, they did have DU
>weapons there. But they insisted they weren't being used in
>training--although there had been some "accidents."
>
>RISING ANGER OVER U.S. OCCUPATION
>
>The furor around this issue illuminated the precarious
>position of the present Kim Dae Jung government and its
>relationship with the U.S. All over south Korea, there is a
>rising tide of anger at the continued occupation of the
>country by U.S. troops 50 years after the start of the
>Korean War.
>
>In the week that the DU controversy broke in the media,
>there were demonstrations and occupations nearly every day
>at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. On May 15, students were able
>to scale the barbed-wire-topped wall around the embassy and
>stage a sit-in. On May 18, the 20th anniversary of the
>Kwangju uprising and subsequent massacre, hundreds marched
>on the embassy after a rally in downtown Seoul.
>
>The demand was always the same: U.S. troops out of Korea.
>
>This demand is coupled with a call for the reunification
>of Korea, since the division of the country coincides with
>the presence of U.S. troops. Everyone realizes there will
>be no reuniting Korea as long as U.S. troops are poised on
>the DMZ.
>
>South Korean President Kim Dae Jung will be holding an
>unprecedented meeting with north Korean leader Kim Jong Il
>in June, which is also the 50th anniversary of the war. Yet
>at the same time, the south Korean regime arrests its
>citizens who visit the north, or even meet with
>representatives of the north, under the onerous provisions
>of the National Security Law.
>
>South Korea, despite the toll taken on the workers by the
>recent capitalist economic crisis, is a powerful,
>industrialized country with a very large army. The argument
>given by the U.S. that its troops must stay there to
>"protect" the population from their brothers and sisters in
>the socialist north is ludicrous, and more and more south
>Koreans are daring to speak up and say so, despite the
>rabid anti-communism forced on Korea ever since the U.S.
>occupation.
>
>No wonder, therefore, that a very militant movement for
>democracy and reunification is on the rise today, from
>Seoul to Maehyang-ri to Kwangju.
>
>[Next: People's investigations of U.S. war crimes in
>Korea.]
>
> - 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: <009f01bfc99f$ee8a7e60$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Solidarity against U.S. aggression prevails at World Peace
>Assembly
>Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 14:47:35 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 1, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>GREECE: SOLIDARITY AGAINST U.S. AGGRESSION
>PREVAILS AT WORLD PEACE ASSEMBLY
>
>Special to Workers World
>Athens, Greece
>
>The U.S.-based International Action Center took part in
>the World Peace Assembly and Conference in Athens, Greece,
>from May 10-15. The gathering, organized by the World Peace
>Council, drew nearly 200 delegates from 47 countries in
>Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe.
>
>Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
>Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and Iraq were all represented. The
>Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament was
>represented for the first time. The event was hosted by the
>Greek Committee for International D�tente and Peace
>(EEDYE).
>
>On the final day of the assembly several thousand people
>marched 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in a protest
>against war and the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance.
>In April 1964, legendary Greek anti-war leader Grigoris
>Lambrakis was arrested along with 2,000 other protesters
>while attempting to walk the same route. A right-wing death
>squad murdered Lambrakis three months later. Each year
>Greek anti-war activists honor his memory by walking the
>route, where the marathon originated in ancient times. The
>film "Z" is based on the Lambrakis case.
>
>The march began with several hundred people but grew to
>thousands as it neared Athens. Marchers carried red flags
>and Cuban flags emblazoned with pictures of Che Guevara.
>They chanted, "Our oath to Lambrakis, throw out the
>American bases," "Not a soldier to Yugoslavia, we won't
>fight for the U.S. and Germany," and "The imperialists
>redivide the world with borders drawn in people's blood."
>
>In villages along the route, residents held rallies to
>welcome the marchers. IAC representative Bill Doares and
>two members of the Belgian anti-war movement Vrede
>represented the international delegates on the walk.
>
>STRUGGLE BETWEEN TWO OUTLOOKS
>
>The assembly itself was marked by a struggle between two
>outlooks--one of uncompromising opposition to imperialist
>war and another that accepted the "right" of the U.S. and
>Western Europe to carry out sanctions and "humanitarian"
>wars of intervention against Yugoslavia, Iraq, and other
>oppressed countries. The latter view was backed by the
>French Movement for Peace, which had dominated the
>leadership of the WPC since the overthrow of socialism in
>the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
>
>The Greek peace committee, which organized huge
>demonstrations in solidarity with Yugoslavia last year, led
>the fight for a principled anti-imperialist position and
>rallied the majority of the delegates.
>
>In his opening address to the assembly, EEDYE President
>Evangelos Maharis said, "The struggle will be long and hard
>but there is no other way. Those who favor compromises,
>concessions, and so-called easy solutions merely facilitate
>the plans of the imperialists, arms merchants, and
>warmongers.
>
>"The events in the Gulf and Yugoslavia should have
>convinced them that the imperialists are insatiable and
>merciless," said Maharis. "Modern imperialism is the most
>savage form of barbarism in history. It is a mortal danger
>to peace and the future of humanity."
>
>SHIFT TO THE LEFT
>
>The final document adopted by the conference defended
>Cuba, north Korea, Iraq, and Yugoslavia against imperialist
>attack and called for the abolition of NATO and other U.S.-
>backed military blocs. The conference also voted to move
>the WPC headquarters from Paris to Athens and elected
>Athanasios Pafilis of Greece to replace Lysanne Elisander
>of the French Movement for Peace as WPC general secretary.
>
>Speakers from many parts of the world gave eloquent and
>powerful condemnations of Washington and Wall Street's "new
>world order." The U.S. was roundly condemned for blocking
>the ratification of arms treaties and accelerating the
>production of nuclear weapons a decade after it proclaimed
>victory in the Cold War.
>
>One assembly document described the gruesome history of
>genocide against Native Americans and other Indigenous
>peoples around the globe. Another described how IMF/World
>Bank economic policy is "globalizing" unemployment.
>
>General Secretary Kim Il Bong of the Korean National Peace
>Committee warned of the dangers posed by the massive U.S.
>military and nuclear presence on the Korean Peninsula and
>asked why Washington is unwilling to sign a peace treaty
>with his country. Chen Jifeng of the Chinese delegation
>pointed out that the Western media now admit that the vast
>majority of refugees who left Kosovo last spring were
>fleeing the U.S. bombing. He denounced the colonialist
>logic inherent in Washington's "human rights above national
>sovereignty" posture.
>
>A statement by the International Action Center exposed
>human-rights violations inside the United States--police
>terror and the mass incarceration of Black and Latino
>youths, the racist use of the death penalty, the slave-
>labor prison-industrial complex, and the frame-up of Mumia
>Abu-Jamal. Doares made the same points in an hour-long
>interview on 902, the TV station of the Greek Communist
>Party.
>
>The strength and militancy of the Greek anti-war movement
>impressed the delegates. The term "unsubdued Athens,"
>originally a reference to the Greek resistance to Nazi
>occupation, was frequently used to describe the fierce
>protests that confronted Clinton when he came here last
>year.
>
> - 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: <00a001bfc99f$f2e5e940$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Mumia and the death penalty
>Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 14:48:04 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 1, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>MUMIA AND THE DEATH PENALTY:
>CRACKS APPEAR IN RULING-CLASS FRONT
>
>By Greg Butterfield
>
>As Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal team prepares to file a new
>brief in federal court, the super-wealthy U.S. ruling class
>and its politicians are coming under increasing pressure to
>declare a moratorium on executions. Meanwhile, Washington
>continues its persecution of activists who support the
>revolutionary Black journalist.
>
>Federal Appeals Court Judge William Yohn has agreed to
>grant a defense request to file a supplemental brief on
>issues raised by two recent Supreme Court decisions on the
>Effective Death Penalty Act. The lawyers have until June 2
>to file the 15-page brief.
>
>Prosecutors have until June 23 to respond. A hearing won't
>be held until after that date.
>
>The Free Mumia movement has been on high alert in
>expectation of the hearing on Abu-Jamal's habeas petition.
>With Abu-Jamal in the courtroom, Yohn will decide whether
>to hear oral arguments for the introduction of new
>evidence--a possible first step to a new trial.
>
>When a hearing date is announced, International Concerned
>Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Millions for
>Mumia/International Action Center, the New York Free Mumia
>Coalition, and other groups will mobilize to pack the
>courtroom in Philadelphia. A rally outside will demand a
>new trial.
>
>However, there are also broader political forces at work
>that may influence the court's schedule.
>
>It may be coincidence that Judge Yohn's deadline falls one
>day after Shaka Sankofa's June 22 execution date in Texas.
>But one thing is certain--Yohn, Al Gore, George W. Bush,
>and all representatives of the capitalist state machinery
>will watch closely to see what kind of struggle is mounted
>to save Sankofa's life--and whether it succeeds.
>
>"Shaka's case is very similar to Mumia's in that all the
>suppressed evidence points to his innocence," said Monica
>Moorehead of Millions for Mumia/IAC. "What happens to Shaka
>could have a tremendous bearing on what happens to Mumia."
>
>Moorehead's group has called for National Days of Action
>to Stop the Execution of Shaka Sankofa June 16-19.
>
>NEW YORK TIMES WEIGHS CASE
>
>The Sunday New York Times Week in Review May 21 carried an
>important article about Abu-Jamal's case under the
>headline, "The poster boy for and against the death
>penalty." It was written by top Times political writer
>Francis X. Clines.
>
>Describing the confrontation between students and police
>over Abu-Jamal's recent speech at Antioch College, Clines
>wrote that both supporters and opponents "sense the
>approach of a defining moment in what has become an issue
>of international concern about the state of criminal
>justice, capital punishment and racism in the United
>States.
>
>"Mr. Abu-Jamal's cause, in any case, is clearly
>flourishing," Clines continued. "Six thousand believers in
>Mr. Abu-Jamal gathered earlier this month in Madison Square
>Garden in Manhattan and thousands more demonstrated in
>European capitals, blocking some Paris intersections."
>
>He went on to describe Abu-Jamal as "the most recognizable
>death row inmate in the land," and quoted attorney Leonard
>Weinglass saying, "It's probably the biggest international
>mobilization since the Angela Davis case."
>
>But the most noteworthy feature of the article was that
>Clines put Abu-Jamal's case in the context of the growing
>opposition to the death penalty. In the past the Times and
>other big-business media have tried to keep the political
>prisoner's case isolated from those of the 3,600 other
>women and men on death row.
>
>This spring the Times, Washington Post, and other major
>media have also carried articles critical of the death rows
>in Virginia and in Bush's home state of Texas.
>
>It may signal that at least one section of the ruling
>class has awakened to the possibility that uncontrollable
>social consequences could follow an attempt to execute
>Mumia Abu-Jamal.
>
>NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTE
>
>On May 18 the New Hampshire State Senate voted 14-10 to
>abolish the death penalty. Earlier the Republican-dominated
>House had voted to end capital punishment.
>
>Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the measure. But the
>vote was another signal of the mass pressure building up
>beneath the surface.
>
>A week earlier, on May 11, a coalition of ruling-class
>figures--including former FBI Director William Sessions,
>former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, and Paula Kurland, leader
>of a Texas "victims' rights" group--announced the formation
>of a "National Committee to Prevent Wrongful Executions" in
>Washington. The group includes bourgeois opponents of the
>death penalty and supporters of capital punishment.
>
>One goal of those who may be calling for a moratorium but
>are actually for the death penalty is to try and wait out
>the anti-execution tide--or at least divert the movement
>into limited reforms, like wider availability of DNA
>testing, to preserve the death penalty in the long run as a
>tool of racist and anti-worker repression.
>
>They are also sending a signal to the two capitalist party
>presidential candidates--both death-penalty supporters--to
>soften their stance until they capture the White House.
>This is especially true of Bush, who told Meet the Press,
>"I'm confident that every person that has been put to death
>in Texas under my watch has been guilty . and had full
>access to the courts."
>
>The Times, in its article about Abu-Jamal, commented:
>"Oddly, for all the moratorium talk, capital punishment has
>
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