>finance its commitments for rail repairs and new projects.
>
> Already it has more or Iess backed out of three major commitments:
>upgrading the west coast mainline to Scotland so it can take high-speed
>trains; building the high speed link with the Channel tunnel, and building
>the cross link service across London.
>
> Chief executive Gerald Corbett told the Government: "You can either have a
>railway in which public subsidy continues to dedine or you can have a
>bigger, better railway. That way means increased subsidies."
>
> His comments came in the wake of a first-ever fall in Railtrack annual
>profits -- from �428 million to around �360 million. This is still nearly
>�l million a day -- and shows up the rail regulator's fines for the flea
>bites they are. The company has also run up a total debt burden of over
>�2.5 billion.
>
> Railtrack's total income is around �4 billion a year, including �1.3
>billion Government subsidy. Railtrack wants this nearly doubled. The rest
>of its income comes from the charges it imposes on the train companies and
>from various franchises and retail activity at stations.
>
> It is high time the Labour leadership admitted that it got things right
>back in 1995 when it opposed the privatisation of out railways and
>predicted this would lead to disaster for the travelling public and profits
>for the fat cats.
>
> It is high time the whole thing was reunited and brought back into public
>ownership.
>
> *************************
>
>4) International story
>
>Creeping fascism in the Czech Republic.
>
>by Zdenek Stefek of the Czech Republic Communist union of Youth
>
>THE "velvet" counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia began on November 17
>1989. It was the signal for the restoration of capitalism -- "wildcat"
>capitalism.
>
> In l990 a witchunt against everything progressive, and especially the
>communists, was launched. Discriminatory laws were passed which represented
>the onset of creeping fascism.
>
> Ultra-right organisations were in the forefront of the onslaught against
>the communists and democrats, and they have been supported by a repressive
>state apparatus and other institutions and individuals using illegal
>methods -- like the late Pinochet loving Senator Vaclav Benda, a Charter 77
>"human rights" signatory and former boss of the interior ministry's
>unconstitutional "Office for the Documentation and Investigation of
>Conmunist Crimes".
>
>
>Anti-communist laws
>
> The Lustration Law imposed mandatory security checks on people applying
>for certain kinds of jobs. Those who had held ranking posts in the
>Communist Party of Czechoslovakia or been members of the People's Militia
>or the State Security organisation (StB), or allegedly cooperated with it,
>had their applications automatically disqualified.
>
> A law was passed declaring the socialist regime which existed in
>Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989 illegal and retrospectively legitimising
>all forms of resistance to it, including, for example, the murderous
>terrorist attacks carried out in the 1950s by the gang led by the Masin
>brothers, now United States citizens.
>
> Another law abolished the statute of limitations, so that individuals
>responsible for "communist crimes" could be prosecuted, regardless of how
>long ago the "crime" had been committed.
>
> Promoting "class hatred" (defending the interests of the working class)
>became a criminal offence.
>
> At the beginning of April this year, as the Czech Republic's economic,
>social and political crisis deepened and support for the Communist Party of
>Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) in the opinion polls rose to more than 20 per
>cent (as against the 11 per cent polled at the 1998 general election), the
>red-baiters tried to have the Criminal Code amended so that belief in
>"communist ideology", or even "sympathy" with it, became a criminal offence.
>
> It is no secret that this was to have been the first move in an attempt to
>ban the Communist Party and the Communist Union of Youth. The bill was
>defeated in the 200-member Chamber of Deputies -- by one vote!
>
>
>Ultra-right
>
> Open fascism increasingly characterises the activities ofthe ultra-right
>organisations, which range from the Republican Party (an affiliate of the
>so-called "Black International", along with Le Pen's National Front in
>France and similar organisations) to the neo-Nazi skinhead movements, which
>according to a recent German TV investigation have around 6,000 members and
>"ten times as many supporters" and the new National Alliance, formed as the
>"respectable face" of fascism to contest elections.
>
> The fact that a Czech-language edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf published in
>March sold 46,000 copies in a month is another sign of the times. So too is
>the decision of the State Prosecutor's Office not to take action against
>the publisher.
>
> Anti-fascists in the Czech Re public are mostly in the minority and,
>because of sectarianism, especially among the anarchists, they are unable
>to create a united anti-fascist front -- something which we in the
>Communist Union of Youth are working hard to change, especially since
>hidden fascism in the bourgeois parliamentary parties is beginning to show
>its face.
>
>
>Repression
>
> On May Day 1999 the police escorted a neo-Nazi skinhead march through
>Prague after brutally dispersing a counter-demonstration organised by
>anti-fascist youth.
>
> On 28 October 1999, the 81st anniversary of Czechoslovakia's foundation as
>an independent state, there was further police violence against left-wing
>youth on the streets of Prague.
>
> On 7 March this year, five members of the Communist Union of Youth and the
>Socialist Organisation of Working People were arrested as they staged a
>silent protest against the unveiling ofa statue of T.G. Masaryk by US
>foreign secretary Albright in Prague's Hradcany Square. Because they had
>hammers and sickles on their banners, they now face charges which are
>punishable by up to eight years in prison!
>
> Our experience is that the Czech Republic's national police force, the
>PCR, usually sides with the neo-fascists. They allow their activities,
>while banning anti-fascists and using violence to break up their
>demonstrations. The sons of senior police officers are often ultra-right
>and racist sympathisers.
>
> Left-wing organisations, including the Communist Union of Youth, are under
>constant surveillance by the secret services and their members are subject
>to covert persecution.
>
> In their struggle against the communists, some right-wing politicians
>would not think twice about restricting important civil rights, or even
>taking up arms against the communists.
>
> According to unconfirmed reports, contacts are being established by
>right-wing parliamentary parties with the neo-fascists, who are offering
>their services in the struggle against the Left and militant trade unionists.
>
> But even some anti-communists are alarmed about the post-1989 resurgence
>of fascism and are speaking out even though they themselves continue to
>practice discrimination against communists.
>
>The IMF-World Bank meeting in Prague, 26-28 September
>
> The repression is already being stepped up in connection with September's
>meeting in Prague of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
>Attempts have been made to ban demonstrations which are calling for
>cancellation of the summit and of the debt of Third World and Eastern
>European countries, the establishment of a democratically-controlled
>international development bank, and action to halt dependence on the
>transnational monopolies and to tax them and the movement of speculative
>capital.
>
> The FBI has even announced that it is opening an office in Prague to
>"advise" local police on how to handle the 30,000 foreign and local
>anti-IMF protestors who are expected in Prague for September's protests
>against capitalist giobalisation!
>
> That is a measure of the extent of the threat to democracy which now
>exists in the United States' Czech neo-colony ten years after the "velvet
>revolution". --Postmark Prague
>
> *********************
>
>5) British news item
>
>Behind closed doors.
>
>by Renee Sams
>
>THE PLIGHT of asylum seekers who have been forced to leave their own
>countries and take refuge here, only to find the authorities and the Home
>Office making their lives intolerable was highlighted at a meeting in
>London's Conway Hall on 1 June.
>
> Suresh Grover, chairperson of the National Civil Rights Movement an
>organisation that was sparked off by the struggle for justice by the
>Stephen Lawrence family, said that despite the McPherson report "there has
>been no decrease in racial attacks".
>
>Police figures confirm 23,000 recorded racist attacks last year -- "And
>that," said Suresh, "was 100 per cent up on the previous year, simply
>because people are a different colour or religion or are asylum seekers.
>
> "Asylum seekers are also suffering from institutional racism. Little has
>been said about those in detention and nothing has been done. Those who are
>responsible sit in the House of Commons."
>
> Institutional racism can take many forms and much of it is hidden behind
>closed doors where vulnerable refugees cannot say or do anything about
>those who have the power to deport them at any time.
>
> The threat of deportation hangs over thousands of asylum seekers and
>immigration officials are in no hurry to make decisions and let refugees
>know their fate.
>
> "George", one of several asylum seekers on the platform, told of the
>appalling situation that forced him into leaving the Cameroon where he was
>born and brought up.
>
> He arrived in Britain nearly 10 years ago and despite many visits to
>immigration offices and talks with officials, he said sadly: "I still do
>not know what is going to happen to me".
>
> Asylum seekers are not helped by their treatment at the hands of
>immigration officials who can make appointments wish the refugee has to
>keep but, as George reported, they can keep the refugees waiting as long as
>they like.
>
> On one occasion George was left to wait all day and then was never seen.
>
> Another form of institutional racism is to be found in prison where
>prisoners from ethnic minorities are discriminated against not only by the
>majority of white prison warders but suffer racism from other prisoners.
>
> Only a few weeks ago, Zahid Mubarek, an Asian man who was due to be
>released from Feltham Young Offenders Institute was placed in a cell with a
>known racist thug the day before his release. He was brutally attacked and
>later died in hospital.
>
> Gareth Pierce, the lawyer who worked hard to get the Guilford Four
>released, spoke of the case of Satpal Ram, wrongly convicted of murder
>after defending himself from a racist attack.
>
> He would normally have been released on parole many years ago but from
>within prison he has constantly fought the injustice of his conviction and
>the racism of the prison system.
>
> He has endured being moved around the system until his family hardly know
>where he is from one day to another plus many savage beatings and attacks.
>
> The treatment of asylum seekers in hostels was also highlighted. The
>situation in Newcastle is a case in point where asylum seekers have no
>basic support or legal representation.
>
> They have to make do on food vouchers at shops where no change is given
>and in a hostile situation where many are afraid to go out of doors.
>
> A support worker explained that this is happening up and down the country.
>
> And indeed, since the Conway hall meeting home Secretary Jack Straw has
>been forced to admit that the policy of dispersing refugees around the
>country has failed.
>
>
>suffered greatly
>
> Refugees have been left isolated with no legal, social or language
>interpretation support and have suffered greatly from racism that is being
>whipped up by certain right-wing newspapers.
>
> The policy was supposed to deal with the problem of the financial burden
>falling unfairly on certain areas -- those around Dover and Heathrow airports.
>
> The answer is to spread the costs evenly around the country -- not the
>refugees. Before the Tories cut benefits to refugees, they were supported
>from central taxation.
>
> Now all the costs of housing and feeding them fall on the local
>authorities wherever they happen to be. This is a huge burden for a handful
>of local authorities but barely noticeable on a national basis.
>
>
> Then last Wednesday the Home Office announced new targets in processing
>asylum applications with a target of 57,000 expulsions a year from the
>current 12,000.
>
> This implies that refugees are unlikely to get a fair hearing and many may
>be shipped back to face prison, torture and even death -- just so the
>Labour government can appear to be just as tough as the Tory government.
>
> The Home Office is to build more detention centres, increasing the number
>of refugees forcibly detained four fold. This is to prevent asylum seekers
>disappearing if their applications are turned down.
>
> *********************
>
>
>New Communist Party of Britain Homepage
>
>http://www.newcommunistparty.org.uk
>
>A news service for the Working Class!
>
>Workers of all countries Unite!
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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