WW News Service Digest #219
6) Palestinian uprising deserves global solidarity
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) Bush to face resistance from Cuba, Vieques, Colombia
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) What's behind U.S. 'war on drugs'?
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9) U.S. admits No Gun Ri massacre
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 23. tammikuu 2001 10:48
Subject: [WW] Palestinian uprising deserves global solidarity
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NO JUSTICE? NO PEACE!
PALESTINIAN UPRISING DESERVES GLOBAL SOLIDARITY
By Richard Becker
Since late September the Palestinian people have risen up in
a new Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation.
More than 400 people have been killed and over 11,000
seriously wounded--90 percent of them Palestinians.
The Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza have been
subjected to economic blockade and closure. The small areas
of the West Bank under Palestinian control, mainly the major
cities and towns, are cut off from each other by the Israeli
army and roving bands of Israeli settlers.
But the Palestinian's determination to continue the struggle
is very strong. So is the people's sentiment for rejecting
the so-called U.S. "peace plans."
It's clear that Bill Clinton's term will end without an
agreement, despite the enormous amount of time and energy he
and his top foreign policy advisors have devoted to this
project.
Why is it so difficult to achieve Middle East peace?
The answer is expressed in a popular slogan: "No justice, no
peace."
Without justice for the Palestinian people, peace in the
Middle East is impossible. And thus far, none of Clinton's
vaunted "peace plans" have offered anything close to a
minimum of justice for the Palestinian people on any of the
major issues.
This should come as no surprise. Contrary to the media myth,
the U.S. government is not an honest broker in the Middle
East. Instead Washington is the senior partner in an
alliance with Israel.
Over the past half century, the United States has
contributed hundreds of billions of dollars in economic and
military aid, as well as crucial political and diplomatic
support, to the Israeli state.
Without this vast assistance not only would the occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza have been impossible, but Israel's
very existence would have been unsustainable over the past
three decades.
LATEST CLINTON PLAN: MORE OF THE SAME
The latest Clinton peace plan reportedly calls for the
Palestinians to take control of 90 percent of the West Bank
and all of the tiny but densely populated Gaza Strip. We say
"reportedly" because the agreement has not been made public.
The other 10 percent would be annexed or leased by Israel
for the settlements and connecting roads it has built in the
West Bank. The 10 percent of West Bank annexed by Israel
would divide the northern and southern sections of the
territory. Bypass roads between settlements would further
cut up Palestinian territory. Approximately 200,000 Israeli
settlers live illegally in the West Bank and Gaza.
Some Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem would come
under the sovereignty of the Palestine National Authority.
But others would remain in Israeli hands.
Israel would also be allowed to maintain "security posts"--
really military bases--at several locations inside the
Palestinian-controlled West Bank and to mobilize its troops
there in case of an "emergency."
The borders of the new Palestinian entity, according to
media reports, would not be under Palestinian control. The
new Palestinian state would be "non-militarized" under the
Clinton plan, while Israel would continue to be one of the
world's leading military powers thanks to U.S. aid.
Finally--and crucially--more than 4 million Palestinians and
their descendants, driven from their homeland beginning in
1948-1949 to make way for the Israeli state, would lose
their right to return.
Under international law and United Nations Resolution 194,
all persons expelled from their homeland have the
unequivocal right to return. From a legal point of view, it
is a right that cannot be terminated. Yet this is a key
element of Clinton's proposal.
What makes this provision even more offensive is the fact
that under Israeli law, any Jewish person from anywhere in
the world has the right to move to Israel (Palestine) and
become an Israeli citizen.
"The right of return is perhaps the one factor that
represents the liberation movement in its totality," said
Elias Rashmawi of the Committee for a Democratic Palestine.
"To concede on this point would be to concede the movement
as a whole."
The latest Clinton plan has been heralded by the U.S. media
as something new. It isn't.
It's mostly a rehash of what Clinton tried to force the
Palestinians to accept at the Camp David talks last July.
After PNA President Yasir Arafat refused to sign that deal,
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the
corporate media blamed the Palestinians for the collapse of
the "peace process."
This helped set the stage for the new Intifada that began on
Sept. 29 and has continued unabated.
FIGHTING TO END COLONIAL OCCUPATION
Refusing to accept a colonial-style agreement that would
deprive them of true national independence, the Palestinians
launched a new wave of revolutionary struggle against
overwhelming odds. Their aim is to end the Israeli
military/settler occupation.
The Palestinian people have displayed incredible
determination and heroism despite being at an extreme
military and economic disadvantage.
The Israeli army regularly uses tanks, helicopters, missiles
and heavy machine guns against unarmed demonstrators and
residential neighborhoods. They have cut off Palestinian
towns and cities from each other and attempted to strangle
the population with an economic blockade.
The Palestinians are fighting back using whatever means they
have: mass demonstrations, street confrontations, hit-and-
run attacks, homemade weapons, including bombs--the means
that people resisting occupation have always used, from
France to Vietnam to South Africa.
It's overwhelmingly Palestinians who are dying in this fight
against Israel's illegal and brutal occupation. Yet the U.S.
big-business media has demonized the Palestinian people,
labeling them "terrorists."
Despite the unrelenting U.S./Israeli repression, the
Palestinian people's determination to achieve justice has
never appeared stronger, more united or more determined.
There will be no real peace in the region until there is
real justice for the Palestinians. Real justice means a real
Palestinian state, with contiguous territory and control of
its own borders, with its capital in Jerusalem and with the
right to return for all those evicted from their homeland.
Until the day comes, the struggle will continue. So must the
solidarity of the people of the world with Palestine.
- 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)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 23. tammikuu 2001 10:48
Subject: [WW] Bush to face resistance from Cuba, Vieques, Colombia
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LATIN AMERICA:
BUSH TO FACE RESISTANCE FROM CUBA, VIEQUES, COLOMBIA
By Teresa Gutierrez
Three Latin American nations--Panama, Ecuador and El
Salvador--have recently converted their national currencies
to the U.S. dollar. Once upon a time, the Jan. 15 Wall
Street Journal gloated, Latin American nationalism was so
high that the idea of the dollar becoming the standard
currency was unthinkable.
But before Wall Street becomes too giddy at the prospect of
completely taking over Latin America's economy, the bankers
and brokers should consider what's much more likely to
occur: a resurgence of anti-imperialist struggle.
In all three of the countries that have adopted the dollar,
mass protests have broken out against the accompanying surge
in cutbacks, hunger and unemployment.
The installation of George W. Bush's illegitimate
administration, with its cabinet list that reads like a
"Who's Who" of right-wing politics, is clearly cause for
concern for Latin America's people.
But the tried and true adage that repression breeds
resistance is sure to take hold if U.S. imperialism
escalates its intervention in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
THREATS AGAINST VIEQUES AND CUBA
Already, members of Bush's cabinet have made threatening
comments about Latin America.
Secretary of Defense-designate Donald H. Rumsfeld stated
during his Senate confirmation hearings that there is no
place like Vieques, Puerto Rico, for Navy training. Rumsfeld
parroted the Pentagon's hard line that it must keep control
of Vieques.
He also said the Pentagon should continue its practice of
using live ammunition on the island--despite the vehement
opposition of the people who live there.
Bush has made many bellicose statements against Cuba. He has
strong ties to the right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami, who've
repeatedly shown their rabid hatred of the Cuban Revolution.
In fact, the Bush forces relied on the mobilization of the
Cuban right wing to help intimidate the Miami/Dade County
Election Board and stop the manual vote recount there last
November.
Bush has called for tightening the blockade against Cuba and
taking a tougher stance against Fidel Castro--ironically, in
the president-select's words, "until there are fair
elections."
Some establishment Cuba "experts" predict that Bush will
reexamine portions of the Helms-Burton Law that Bill Clinton
waived. Others anticipate greater belligerence because of
the right wing's influence.
However, there are strong countervailing pressures from
sectors of U.S. big business that want to invest in Cuba,
including pharmaceuticals and agribusiness. They fear that
their European imperialist rivals are getting the jump on
them and want trade barriers lowered.
DEFENDER OF IMF AND WORLD BANK
The Bush administration is sure to continue defending the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies that
have brought untold misery to Latin America's people.
Bush and his advisors will also work overtime to try and
overturn the unfolding resistance in Venezuela.
Assassination attempts against President Hugo Chavez are
likely.
And of course, Bush will continue the military buildup and
propaganda war known as "Plan Colombia" against the
insurgent movement there, led by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP).
Despite it all, Latin America will continue to be a hotbed
of resistance and a constant thorn in imperialism's side.
Sometimes in Army suits and sometimes in three-piece suits,
Washington has tried to subjugate the people of Latin
America for more than a century so that Wall Street can
extract more profits.
The Bush Administration may attempt to keep the U.S. Navy in
Vieques. It may attempt to carry out "Plan Colombia." It may
tighten the U.S. blockade of Cuba.
But Bush and the billionaire ruling class he represents
can't stop the struggle in Latin America, for that is
inevitable and necessary. It's the righteous struggle of
oppressed people who've been under U.S. imperialism's thumb
for too long.
The Cuban Revolution shows the way forward for all people of
Latin America and the Caribbean: socialism, which has
guaranteed jobs, equality, education and health care to
Cuban society.
Only socialism can end the centuries of oppression brought
on by imperialism's legacy of exploitation, poverty and
underdevelopment.
- 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)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 23. tammikuu 2001 10:49
Subject: [WW] What's behind U.S. 'war on drugs'?
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WHAT'S BEHIND U.S. "WAR ON DRUGS"?
By Andy McInerney
What do working people have to gain from a "war on drugs?"
This question is becoming more important every day. There is
growing evidence that the so-called "war on drugs," waged
under various guises by every president since Ronald Reagan,
will affect more and more lives in the coming months.
Politicians use it to justify more money for prisons. The
Pentagon uses it to justify their interventions, especially
against the struggling people of Colombia. Hollywood
glamorizes the war in its glaringly racist way, portraying
cops and Rambo-type soldiers facing off against drug
kingpins--inevitably Latino or Black.
Make no mistake: the drug policy enacted by Reagan and
carried out by Bush, Clinton and now handed to Bush Jr. is a
real war. There are victims and there are casualties.
The problem for workers and other oppressed people is that
the ones who are supposed to benefit from drug-free streets
are the targets and the victims.
Take the domestic drug war. The main target of the war on
drugs in the United States has been drug users and small-
time dealers.
The effects have been dramatic. Jails and prisons in the
United States are overflowing--largely due to people
convicted of drug-related crimes. The U.S. now has a larger
number of people in prison--both absolutely and as a
percentage of the population--than any other country in the
world.
According to the Sentencing Project, over 6 million people
are caught up in the criminal justice system in some way--
including one-third of all Black men between 20 and 29 years
old. One third of them were convicted of drug-related
crimes.
In 1997, the most recent year that data was available, 80
percent of drug arrests were made for possession, not
selling. As usual, the burden has fallen most heavily on the
Black and Latino communities. African Americans, for
example, comprise about 13 percent of all those who use
illegal drugs at least monthly--yet they make up 74 percent
of those sentenced for drug possession.
A dramatic result of these mass incarcerations has just been
demonstrated in Florida, where anyone convicted of a
nonviolent drug felony lost the right to vote.
Yet there has been no measurable decline in drug use in the
United States.
PENTAGON COVER FOR INTERVENTION
What about the war on drugs in the rest of the world?
For example, the outgoing Clinton administration devoted
$1.3 billion to a military package that is supposedly going
to help the Colombian and other South American governments
fight drugs.
In Colombia this money is paying for Black Hawk combat
helicopters, training elite battalions of the Colombian
Armed Forces and spraying vast areas of land with deadly
defoliants--much like Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
These efforts have made Colombia the third-largest recipient
of U.S. military aid in the world.
Yet despite 10 years of steadily increasing military aid,
cocaine production has doubled in the last five years,
according to a review of drug policy in Colombia published
in the Chicago Sun-Times on Jan. 14.
U.S. domestic and international drug policies have made no
dent in the drug trade for one simple reason: They are not
aimed at the drug trade. They are tools to increase the
exploitation of the most oppressed people in the United
States and across the hemisphere.
In the United States, that means to intensify the war
against the Black and Latino communities, justifying massive
police occupations and the expansion of the prison-
industrial complex.
In Colombia, it means fighting a dirty war against the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-
EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), groups that are
fighting to free their country from the yoke of
International Monetary Fund domination.
A PROFIT-DRIVEN INDUSTRY
The multi-billion-dollar illegal drug industry, like every
other industry in the capitalist world economy, is driven by
profits. Like every industry, it is based on the production
of raw materials, the conversion of these raw materials into
a commercial product and the distribution of these products
to consumers.
The illegality of the marijuana, cocaine and heroin trade
has the effect of driving up the price at the distribution
level. Colombian peasants who produce coca leaf see none of
the billions of dollars that their product generates on the
world market.
Drug barons hold these super profits. These cocaine
capitalists organize their industries and cartels much like
any major corporation. The profits themselves are stashed in
major U.S. banks after having been laundered through a
network of legal and illegal companies.
Last June, the U.S. Justice Department met with CEOs of some
of the biggest U.S. corporations--General Electric, Philip
Morris, Hewlett Packard and others--due to their involvement
in laundering drug profits. (New York Times, Oct. 10)
The Pentagon also benefits from the illegal drug trade. The
military brass consistently finances its covert operations
through this underground industry.
The list of countries where drugs have been produced--Laos,
Afghanistan, Peru, Colombia--reads like a list of major U.S.
covert military interventions.
Where banks and generals gain, working people can only lose.
The growing movement against racism and imperialist war
needs to reject the "war on drugs." The scourge of drugs can
only be addressed by confronting the economic exploitation
and social control, as well as the alienation, which lie at
its root.
- 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)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 23. tammikuu 2001 10:49
Subject: [WW] U.S. admits No Gun Ri massacre
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WAR CRIMES IN KORA: U.S. ADMITS NO GUN RI MASSACRE
By Deirdre Griswold
The U.S. government has finally, after half a century,
admitted that its soldiers killed innocent civilians in the
south Korean township of No Gun Ri shortly after the start
of the Korean War in 1950. President Bill Clinton himself
expressed "deep regret" in a public statement on Jan. 11.
But in making an official investigation and report on the
incident, the Pentagon did everything it could to shield its
officers from questioning and blame. It refused to allow the
south Korean Ministry of Defense, which was also conducting
an investigation, to question any U.S. military personnel.
And, by refusing to "quantify" the number of Koreans killed
at No Gun Ri, it tried to downplay this massacre.
Survivors say the killing began when U.S. planes strafed
refugees who were fleeing an area of heavy fighting. About
100 people were killed this way. The large column of
refugees, wearing white so they could be distinguished from
combatants, then sought shelter at a railroad overpass.
Over a three-day period, U.S. troops with machine guns
killed another 300 of these unarmed civilians, survivors
told reporters from the Associated Press, who broke the
story in the fall of 1999. The Pentagon report refuses to
give a number.
Lt. Gen. Michael Ackerman, the Army inspector general,
claimed at a press conference that his investigation turned
up no evidence of any orders to fire on civilians. But this
was contradicted by the Associated Press, which in a Jan. 12
article said that about 20 ex-GIs it had interviewed
"recalled orders to shoot."
The article continued: "The AP also found wartime documents
showing at least three high-level Army headquarters and an
Air Force command ordered troops to treat as hostile any
civilians approaching U.S. positions. At the time, U.S.
forces were in retreat, and thousands of refugees fled for
their safety as the North Korean army advanced south.
"Two days before the No Gun Ri incident, the 8th Cavalry
Regiment communications log instructed: 'No refugees to
cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines.'
"
While the U.S. government pretended to have invaded Korea to
aid the people in the south, this massacre confirms that the
war itself was a racist and imperialist atrocity in which
the U.S. commanders regarded all Koreans as potential
enemies.
A growing movement in Korea is exposing U.S. atrocities and
war crimes and demanding that the tens of thousands of
soldiers still based there go home.
- 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)
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
