> WW News Service Digest #147
>
> 1) Colombia economic crisis fuels resistance
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) Colombia news briefs
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) NATO threatens new war against Yugoslavia
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) Palestinian-Israeli talks: Why U.S. pushed for one-sided settlement
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) Anti-protest plot: Lawsuit charges gov't conspiracy
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) 'Hip-Hop vs. DNC' backs Mumia action
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>-------------------------
> Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 10, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>Colombia
>
>ECONOMIC CRISIS FUELS RESISTANCE
>
>By Andy McInerney
>
>The government of Colombian President Andres Pastrana
>unveiled its new economic package on July 28. The proposed
>budget is a virtual declaration of war against the working
>class.
>
>Colombia's powerful labor-union movement is fighting back.
>The country's three biggest union federations have scheduled
>a 24-hour national strike for Aug. 3.
>
>For Pastrana's economic team, cutbacks are key. Spending on
>state services is to be cut by as much as 20 percent.
>Thousands of workers are expected to be laid off as whole
>public-sector entities are shut down. Those who manage to
>keep their jobs will take pay cuts.
>
>One segment of the budget is not being cut. The single
>biggest item in the proposed budget is for payments
>servicing Colombia's $34 billion foreign debt.
>
>That spending alone accounts for $9 billion of the $24
>billion budget.
>
>In other words, nearly 40 percent of Colombia's national
>budget is destined for the coffers of international banks--
>the vast majority in the United States. That's more than
>three times what the government plans to invest in the
>country's economy.
>
>This austerity budget combines with plans for increased
>privatizations and for reorganizing labor laws to undercut
>workers' rights. These factors--with Pastrana's support for
>the Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion plan centered on a huge
>military buildup--are what provoked calls for a national
>strike.
>
>Julio Roberto G�mez, general secretary of the General
>Confederation of Democratic Workers (CGTD) told the
>Colombian Communist Party weekly newspaper Voz that the
>strike is a response to "the miserable neoliberal policies
>carried out by President Pastrana that result in increasing
>impoverishment of the Colombian population."
>
>G�mez is also a leader of the National Union Headquarters
>that is organizing the strike. The Headquarters includes the
>CGTD, the United Workers Federation (CUT) and the Colombian
>Workers Federation (CTC).
>
>"Escalating privatizations are continuing," G�mez explained.
>"The phenomenon of paying wages late is growing, not only in
>the state and hospital sectors, but also in the private
>sector like the textile workers."
>
>"The Aug. 3 strike is just the beginning of several
>strikes," representatives of the CUT told Voz.
>
>GENERAL ECONOMIC CRISIS
>
>In 1999, the three union federations staged two major
>strikes, including a general strike in October that involved
>millions of workers. This year's strike is set to occur amid
>a prolonged economic crisis.
>
>Recent figures released by the Colombian government show the
>official unemployment rate at over 20 percent and growing.
>One-third of industrial jobs are part-time positions.
>
>In 1999, overall production measured by the gross domestic
>product dropped by 4.3 percent. While some Colombian
>economists are pointing to an upturn, such signs of hope
>have not translated into better conditions for workers.
>
>"In 1999, factories were operating at half capacity," Vice
>Minister of Development Juan Alfredo Pinto told the Bogot�
>daily newspaper El Espectador. "Now they are operating at
>higher levels, but without employing more workers."
>
>The skyrocketing unemployment comes on top of a dramatic
>impoverishment of the Colombian population. Twenty-five
>million of the country's 40 million people live in poverty,
>defined as lacking enough resources to provide for basic
>daily needs.
>
>Urban professionals and other middle-class layers have been
>hard hit by the plummeting value of the Colombian peso. In
>1996, the exchange rate was 1,040 pesos to the dollar; now
>it is over 2,100 to the dollar. That sets imported goods
>effectively out of reach for all but the wealthiest.
>
>In the countryside, 1.5 percent of landowners own 80 percent
>of arable land, according to a report by Colombian human-
>rights activist Luis Alberto Matta. This gross polarization
>is exacerbated by paramilitary death squads that have forced
>millions of Colombian peasants off their land and into the
>cities--only to have their land swallowed up by the big
>landowners and drug barons.
>
>Colombia is an oil-producing country. Yet its resources are
>siphoned off by U.S. and other international oil
>conglomerates like Occidental and BP.
>
>During the last week of July, gas at the pump in Colombia
>cost nearly $2 per gallon--more than in the United States.
>Those prices have caused a 51-percent drop in gasoline
>consumption.
>
>THE REVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGE
>
>Economic crisis is sweeping much of Latin America.
>
>Oil-producing Venezuela is in a recession. Brazil, Latin
>America's economic powerhouse, faced a painful financial
>crisis in 1998.
>
>But what sets Colombia apart is the presence of a powerful
>revolutionary alternative to the U.S.-backed Pastrana
>government. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-
>People's Army (FARC-EP) has waged a 36-year struggle for
>what they call a New Colombia. They now effectively control
>more than 40 percent of the countryside.
>
>As part of talks with the government, the FARC-EP has
>organized a series of public audiences, where wide sectors
>of the population can come to the site of the talks and make
>proposals or participate in dialogues on the problems facing
>the country. In July, for example, close to 1,500 students
>attended an audience on "youth and employment."
>
>So at the same time that the unions are waging a national
>strike calling on the government to renegotiate the foreign
>debt, the FARC-EP is making a moratorium on debt payments a
>central item of discussion at the talks.
>
>Direct links between the FARC-EP and the mass movement are
>extremely difficult because the government relies on
>paramilitary death-squad terror. Union leaders are routinely
>assassinated for leading strikes on the grounds that they
>were "aiding" the FARC-EP.
>
>The revolutionary insurgencies and the mass struggles are
>proceeding in parallel, representing twin challenges for
>Colombia's U.S-backed ruling class. But the economic crisis
>is bringing those struggles much closer together.
>
>Of course, this weak link in the globalized web of
>imperialist exploitation has not gone unnoticed in
>Washington. The Clinton administration finalized a $1.3
>billion military-aid package to Colombia, already the third-
>largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world.
>
>This is part of a larger "Plan Colombia," a program for $7.5
>billion in donations from the biggest capitalist countries
>to shore up Colombia's government militarily and
>economically.
>
>Human-rights groups in Colombia have condemned the Plan
>Colombia as an escalation of the war. Labor unions have
>included opposition to the Plan Colombia as part of the Aug.
>3 national strike. This adds an important political
>dimension to the strike.
>
>"The only way that the three union federations would suspend
>the strike on Aug. 3 would be if the government radically
>altered its economic policies," CUT leader H�ctor Fajardo
>told El Espectador on Aug. 1.
>
>"It would have to suspend its agreements with the IMF, the
>application of Plan Colombia, and not present the reforms of
>pensions and labor law."
>
>That puts Colombia's working class on a collision course
>with Wall Street and the Pentagon.
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00d401c000db$affb6560$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Colombia news briefs
>Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 21:55:07 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Windows-1252"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
> Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 10, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>COLOMBIA BRIEFS
>
>Gov't scuttles talks
>with ELN
>
>The Colombian government gives lip service to its commitment
>to peace. Colombian President Andres Pastrana has opened
>talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-
>People's Army (FARC-EP) and has offered to begin a separate
>process with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
>
>But on the eve of July 24-25 preliminary talks with ELN
>representatives in Geneva, government-backed paramilitary
>forces launched a major attack on ELN troops in the Bolivar
>province of northern Colombia.
>
>"This is an attack against a zone where the government has
>promised to refrain from military operations and from which
>the ELN leadership is directing peace negotiations," ELN
>Commander Nicolas Rodriguez said. Rodriguez called the
>attacks a "joint operation" of government and paramilitary
>forces.
>
>"As a result of the armed confrontation, severe difficulties
>have arisen for the process under way between the government
>and the ELN," stated a joint communiqu� after the talks in
>Geneva. Eighty representatives of Col ombian "civil society"-
>-unionists, teachers, employers and religious leaders--also
>took part in the two-day meeting.
>
>U.S. admits aiding
>counterinsurgency war
>
>While the U.S. Congress discussed President Bill Clinton's
>$1.3 billion military-aid package to Colombia, solemn
>assurances were made that the attack helicopters and elite
>battalions were destined only for the "war on drugs." The
>United States was not going to be involved in the war
>against the FARC-EP and the ELN.
>
>Just two weeks after Clinton signed the aid bill, that lie
>has been publicly abandoned. Blackhawk helicopters were
>employed to repel a July 30 FARC-EP offensive in the town of
>Arboleda.
>
>"The U.S.-supplied aircraft are generally permitted to
>conduct such rescue [sic] flights and search and rescue
>missions in addition to their normal anti-narcotics
>responsibilities," explained U.S. State Department
>spokesperson Philip Reeker.
>
>Arboleda is a town in coffee-producing western Colombia,
>where neither coca nor poppy is grown.
>
>The State Department was on the defensive as the most
>extreme U.S. congressional advocates for counter-
>revolutionary war in Colombia complained about the nominal
>restrictions on the military aid.
>
>Days earlier, on July 25, U.S. House International Relations
>Committee Chair Ben Gilman ranted about a July 14 attack in
>Roncesvalle, a town in northern Colombia. "Since the U.S.
>Embassy maintains the absurd fiction that U.S. aid could
>only be used for counter-narcotics purposes, the Blackhawks
>were not called in," he complained.
>
>Gilman openly pushed for dropping the sham of the "war on
>drugs." The warmonger whined: "If, on the other hand, the
>guerrillas are not engaged in any narcotics activities and
>they don't fire first, the security forces can't fire on
>them. Isn't that bizarre?"
>
>The FARC-EP launched a massive nationwide offensive in July.
>Leaflets found amid the rubble of destroyed police stations
>link the offensive to the recently signed U.S. military-aid
>package.
>
>- 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)
>
>Copyright � 2000 workers.org
>
>
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00d501c000dc$31654760$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] NATO threatens new war against Yugoslavia
>Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 21:58:44 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Windows-1252"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 10, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>NATO THREATENS NEW WAR AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>With news statements and articles, NATO leaders renewed
>their threats against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in
>the last week of July, raising the specter of a new war of
>aggression against that country.
>
>NATO Secretary General George Rob ert son threw the weight
>of the military alliance behind the move to split Montenegro
>away from the remaining Yugoslavia.
>
>Speaking to the media July 27, Robertson said, "I again
>repeat my warning to President Milosevic not to make
>mistakes that he has made in the past and not to continue to
>undermine the elected government of Montenegro."
>
>This is a barely veiled threat that NATO will again bomb
>Yugoslavia, as it did for 78 days after Belgrade refused in
>March 1999 to submit to the Rambouillet ultimatum that would
>have opened all of Yugoslavia to NATO occupation.
>
>What Robertson calls "the elected government of Montenegro"
>is the regime headed by President Milo Djukanovic, who is
>always described as "pro-Western" in the big-business media
>here. This means he has adopted the German Deutschemark as
>Montenegro's currency and has tried to split from
>Yugoslavia.
>
>Of the 800,000 people living in Montenegro, however, at
>least half prefer to remain part of Yugoslavia. This was
>seen in last June's elections, which pro-Yugoslavia parties
>won in the major seaport town of Herceg Novi and almost won
>in Podgorica, the capital. In reality Montenegro is not a
>viable independent state. If it split it would become a NATO
>protectorate.
>
>Under those conditions, an attempt by Djukanovic to
>unconstitutionally split from Yugoslavia runs the danger of
>starting a civil war. Asked about possible NATO intervention
>in this situation, Robertson made this vague threat: "We
>aren't saying what we will do. One of the lessons of Kosovo
>is that you don't reveal your cards too far in advance."
>
>To add to the danger, U.S. President Bill Clinton and German
>Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder--heads of the two biggest
>imperialist powers in NATO--signed an article in the July 28
>International Herald Tribune pledging to intervene in the
>Yugoslav national election now set for Sept. 24.
>
>They said they would help the opposition to Milosevic unite
>and that they would also support Djukanovic if he boycotts
>the election.
>
>"We will continue to work with the democratic opposition in
>Serbia, to help it unite around a common platform, to
>support nongovernmental organizations and the independent
>media, and to back President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro
>until all those who have suffered under Mr. Milosevic's rule
>can take their place in Europe," Clinton and Schroeder
>wrote.
>
>If there were any doubt before, the two Western leaders made
>it clear that there is no serious opposition to Milosevic's
>party and its allies except those groups that are toadies of
>the Western imperialist powers.
>
>The Yugoslav political leaders have set local, national
>parliamentary and presidential elections for Sept. 24. Using
>strictly legal parliamentary decisions to change some
>election laws, the Milosevic government has maximized its
>chances of surviving the election and of keeping Yugoslavia
>out of the clutches of NATO.
>
>
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