WW News Service Digest #222
1) Bush cabinet appointees: Defenders of private property, not environment
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Concord, Mass.: 'The DU shot heard around the world'
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) As Bush is sworn in: New Bombing attacks hit Iraq
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Carry on struggle to free Leonard Peltier
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Bush on Colombia: more intervention, more war
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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BUSH CABINET APPOINTEES:
DEFENDERS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY, NOT ENVIRONMENT
By Gery Armsby
George W. Bush's selection of Gale Norton for the post of
secretary of the interior and Christine Todd Whitman to head
the Environmental Protection Agency provides additional
evidence that the incoming administration is trying to
assemble a right-wing, pro-corporate cabinet masked by a
"diversity" of women and people of color.
The primary qualification these appointees possess is not
their experience as women in a society that still views
women as private property, despite progress. Rather it is
their tested reputations for defending and protecting the
owners of private property and the system of capitalist
exploitation.
Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, has
distinguished herself as a reactionary. Like other "state's
rights" advocates in the political establishment, Norton
espouses a racist, revisionist, pro-Confederacy view of U.S.
history.
As attorney general Norton refused to defend the state of
Colorado against a lawsuit challenging an affirmative action
program that gave preference to minority contractors. In a
1996 speech at the ultra-conservative Independence
Institute, Norton said that slavery was just "bad facts" and
that "we lost too much" in the Civil War.
She also opposes equality for lesbian, gay, bi and trans
people. Norton appealed a Supreme Court injunction against
Colorado's Amendment 2--the notorious anti-gay ballot
initiative that narrowly passed in 1992. Norton later
confirmed that Paul Cameron, a rabid fascist ideologue who
advocates concentration camps for lesbian, gay, bi and trans
people, had been paid $10,125 by the state at her discretion
to testify in defense of Amendment 2.
Norton was also a strong advocate of a "self-audit" Colorado
law that allowed businesses to police their own
environmental conduct. She fought minimal federal
regulations affecting public lands on the basis of state's
rights. Whitman supports similar measures.
In 1998, Norton founded the Council of Republicans for
Environmental Advocacy to work with corporations that
support "multiple uses" of public lands--meaning the right
of industry to exploit these lands for profit. The first
CREA sponsors included a host of corporate energy interests.
She has advocated property owners' "right to pollute" and
favors compensation for corporate losses related to meeting
environmental standards. She also advocates opening the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Norton has followed in the footsteps of her former boss and
mentor, James G. Watt, also from Colorado. Watt was interior
secretary under Ronald Reagan. If Norton's long association
with him is any indication, she will also willingly serve
the interests of Big Oil once installed.
BLACK AND LATINO LEADERS URGE REJECTION OF WHITMAN
On Jan. 14, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson
spoke out against Whitman's selection to head the EPA. Three
days earlier, 11 members of the New Jersey Legislative Black
and Latino Caucus had urged Congress to reject Bush's pick
for the EPA job. The caucus members said they were concerned
about police and environmental policies implemented during
Whitman's seven years as governor.
This opposition to Whitman from the Black and Latino
communities should come as no surprise. New Jersey's
reputation for racist profiling under her administration
tells much of the story. State Police there are currently
under federal monitoring for their racist practices. Figures
released recently show that police profiling of Black
motorists in New Jersey has actually gone up in the last
year.
Whitman supported the two white state troopers who shot four
unarmed Black and Latino men after pulling them over on the
New Jersey Turnpike in 1998.
In 1999, when the popular band Rage Against the Machine gave
a concert in New Jersey to support Black journalist and
death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, Whitman joined
police "unions" in calling a boycott of the event and made
anti-youth statements to the media. She is a vocal supporter
of the death penalty.
Whitman was the first woman to serve as New Jersey governor.
It's often noted that she is considered a moderate, pro-
choice Republican.
But it's worth remembering what Whitman did for other women
in New Jersey. She presided over an administration that
forced more than half of New Jersey's welfare recipients off
the rolls and instituted the "Work First" workfare plan.
Like many other governors who launched similar anti-woman,
anti-poor campaigns in the last half-decade, Whitman
disguised these roll-backs as measures to "restore dignity
and self-reliance" to people "caught in a cycle of
dependency."
Whitman bragged about job growth during her recent "State of
the State" speech. But she failed to mention that many of
New Jersey's newer jobs are non-union. And they are heavily
subsidized by "business incubation" tax breaks that come out
of workers' pockets and line the coffers of private
companies.
As head of the EPA, what can Whitman be expected to do? Just
ask Black and Latino people who live in Camden or Newark--
two New Jersey cities that have among the nation's highest
density of brownfields. Brownfields are hazardous industrial
sites abandoned by companies and awaiting decontamination
before they can be redeveloped.
Many of these sites are desperately needed for housing and
neighborhood development projects. But because of hazards
like toxic underground storage tanks, urban brownfields have
languished under the Whitman administration.
Whitman rests her reputation as an environmentalist on
having increased the acreage of New Jersey's protected
lands, mostly on the Atlantic shore and inland in the
wealthiest counties. At the same time working-class and poor
areas continue to face a range of environmental problems.
Efforts by the environmental movement to address the
problems of pollution and eco-crisis have won some gains and
have helped focus the spotlight on corporate greed and
government complicity. And solutions to many of the
environmental crises have already been developed. Safe,
alternative energy sources, for instance, could easily be
developed with technology that already exists.
But under capitalism, these ideas are dismissed as "too
costly" and the environment, as well as the people,
continues to be exploited in the drive for profits.
Until the real needs of society are given priority over the
bottom line of the corporations, the workers and oppressed
should demand that the job of protecting the environment
belongs to the people, not the hirelings of oil billionaires
like Whitman and Norton.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CONCORD, MASS.: "THE DU SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD"
By Steven Gillis
Concord, Mass.
An outpouring of Concord, Mass., residents braved a
snowstorm to honor Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday Jan. 15
and to demand an immediate ban on depleted-uranium weapons
worldwide.
The dangers of depleted uranium are as close as the wooded
neighborhoods of this small, colonial-era town outside of
Boston. Abnormally high cancer rates are been documented by
the secluded riverbanks near the residents' homes.
Concord is the home of the 1776 American Revolution,
Minuteman National Park--and depleted-uranium Pentagon
contractor Starmet, a corporation known prior to the Gulf
War by the less euphemistic name Nuclear Metals Inc.
Begun as a corporate spin-off from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology 50 years ago, Starmet is one of only
two DU weapons manufacturers in the United States. Since
1958, Starmet has used an unlined dump here to contain more
than 400,000 pounds of radioactive refuse from war-material
production. DU has a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion
years.
Starmet has been delisted from the stock exchange and is
reportedly on the verge of filing bankruptcy. Its wealthy
stockholders, the Pentagon and the federal Environmental
Protection Agency's Superfund department are in a fierce
internecine struggle over who is to pay for the estimated
$50 million clean up. Meanwhile, DU continues to seep
further into the local water table.
The Jan. 15 "Toxic Shots Heard 'Round the World" protest was
sponsored by Grassroots Action for Peace and Citizens
Research and Environmental Watch. Latinas and Latinos for
Social Change, DU researcher and Gulf War veteran Dan Fahey,
Massachusetts Gulf War Veterans head Ed Bryan and local
politicians, churches and anti-war groups joined the
demonstration.
Their efforts were part of an international day of actions
called by the Military Toxics Project to petition the
world's governments to immediately ban depleted-uranium
weaponry.
Judy Scotnicki of Grassroots Action told those gathered that
although the Pentagon brass has refused to give up DU
weapons, there is a growing worldwide movement to outlaw
their manufacture and use. She called for solidarity with
the peoples of Iraq, Puerto Rico and the Balkans who are
suffering from the consequences of the Pentagon's DU
weapons.
Steve Fernandez of the Boston-based Latinas and Latinos for
Social Change spoke of the irony of fighting the war
industry and nuclear contamination in the woods of Walden
Pond, where activist Henry David Thoreau penned "Civil
Disobedience" more than a century ago.
Speaking at a post-protest news conference at Concord's
Colonial Inn, Fernandez blasted the continued U.S.
colonization of Puerto Rico. He stressed that the U.S.
Navy's bombings of the inhabited island of Vieques with DU,
chemical and "conventional" bombs, as well as napalm, is
genocidal. LFSC demands that the U.S. military immediately
retreat from Vieques, clean up the island, restore the
natural environment and compensate the residents.
Activists today vowed further struggle--in the legal arena
and in the streets--to make all parties of the military-
industrial complex cease and desist from their criminal
activity and take responsibility for their toxic destruction
of the environment worldwide.
The Military Toxics Project's petition to ban DU can be read
at www.miltoxproj.org/action/petitiontobandu.htm. For more about the
longstanding struggle to rid Concord of Starmet's DU, visit the Web site
www.iacboston.org.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS BUSH IS SWORN IN: NEW BOMBING ATTACKS HIT IRAQ
By Deirdre Sinnott
President George W. Bush wasted no time. On Jan. 20, one of
his first acts was to kill six people in an attack on
Salman, Iraq--a village about 120 kilometers west of
Baghdad. U.S. and British planes destroyed a cattle-feed
depot run by the ministry of agriculture and a nearby house.
The bombings continued on Jan. 22, when civilian targets in
northern and southern Iraq were hit, according to the Iraqi
News Agency.
These attacks come amid new accusations by the U.S.
government that Iraq, which has been under crippling
sanctions since August 1990, has reopened three factories
that are making castor oil and chlorine and can be quickly
converted to produce chemical weapons.
Sara Flounders, co-director of the Iraq Sanctions Challenge--
a solidarity group organized by the International Action
Center that just returned from a visit to Iraq --said,
"These attacks against Iraq have continued almost each day
for the last two years. Combined with the sanctions they
have meant that Iraq is at a constant state of war.
"We visited the Al Wathba water purification plants in
Baghdad," Flounders continued. "They are suffering from a
severe lack of chlorine. The plant processes water for 35
percent of the city of Baghdad. They need 10 metric tons of
chlorine per month to properly treat this water. Right now
they only receive three tons.
"Most of the children we have seen in the hospitals are
deathly ill from drinking bad water," she explained. "They
get dysentery, diarrhea, vomiting and other problems from
drinking untreated water. They waste away. Often there are
not enough medicines to treat their illness. However even if
they received the proper treatments, without chlorine the
water they drink will get them sick all over again."
Flounders added, "To deny a society the means for preventing
disease and blocking the purchase or production of
medicines, as we have seen the UN Security Council 661
Committee do time after time, is an act of deliberate
genocide."
The 661 committee is responsible for final approval for any
contracts negotiated under the so-called "oil-for-food
program."
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
"The Iraqis are accused of making chlorine and castor oil,"
said Flounders. "The U.S. calls these simple items potential
weapons of mass destruction. If each item is called 'dual-
use'--meaning it can have a civilian and military use--how
will Iraq ever be able to provide for its people?"
Castor oil can be used in agriculture, food production,
cosmetics, paper production, plastics and rubber production,
in electronics and communications production,
pharmaceuticals, paint and adhesive production, as a
lubricant and in textile chemicals.
Flounders stressed, "The real weapons of mass destruction
are the sanctions and the tons of depleted uranium that the
U.S. dumped all over Iraq, Bosnia and Yugoslavia, and has
been testing in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and south Korea."
DU has been implicated in the deaths of European troops
stationed in the Balkans as well as the rise of leukemia and
other cancers in Iraq's population.
"We found extremely high levels of radioactivity in soil
samples in the Iraqi desert south of Basra," Flounders said.
U.S. forces fired hundreds of thousands of shells reinforced
with depleted uranium in that region during the 1991 war.
"A report from Geneva," Flounders stated, "indicates that
besides depleted uranium, some of the U.S. shells contained
measurable amounts of plutonium and uranium-236, even more
dangerous pollutants.
"This only adds to U.S. culpability in this matter,"
Flounders concluded. "DU and sanctions are the real weapons
of mass destruction. They are made in the U.S., they are
designed to kill civilians and they will keep on killing for
generations to come."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: CARRY ON STRUGGLE TO FREE LEONARD PELTEIR
At the end, Bill Clinton had one last opportunity to attach a
bit of decency to his presidency. He had a final chance to
pardon framed-up Native leader Leonard Peltier. There was
popular backing for such an action. The honest people of the
world were for it. But not Clinton.
Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide had called, faxed
or emailed their support for clemency. Calls and letters
arrived from such renowned human rights and religious
leaders as Coretta Scott King, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, Amnesty International, Nobel Laureate
Rigoberta Menchu from Central America and Archbishop Desmond
Tutu of South Africa, among many others.
Peltier's supporters had mobilized and rallied support
across the country. If Clinton were really concerned with
his role in history, with the honor of his office, there was
no reason to avoid liberating the American Indian Movement
leader, who has spent far too long in jail and whose health
is so precarious.
But Clinton was consistent to the end. He was the model of
the opportunist capitalist politician. He was more
responsive to pressure from the right--in this case from the
FBI--than pressure from the people.
Along with his servility to the billionaire ruling class,
this failure of courage has been the hallmark of the Clinton
presidency. On every big issue he has capitulated to the
right wing, reneging on his promise for the rights of gays
and lesbians in the military, giving up the fight for
universal health insurance, turning his back on appointees
like Lani Guinier.
He pardoned his brother. He pardoned some of his friends. He
pardoned some of his political supporters. He pardoned a few
people whose names are unknown to the public. Most of all,
he made a deal to assure he would escape prosecution for his
own crimes and misdemeanors.
In the end he was true to himself--which meant he did
nothing for the poor and oppressed. The outside chance that
this opportunist politician would find a little courage on
his last day in office disappeared and laid to rest any
claim he might have on an historical role.
Clinton makes quite a contrast with Peltier, a shining
example of courage. Peltier has been as brave in facing
adversity and ill health in prison as he was as an AIM
warrior defending Native people at Wounded Knee.
Peltier's name is linked irrevocably with the struggle at
Pine Ridge, S.D., against the FBI's reign of terror from
1973 to 1976 and with the armed resistance of Native people
to oppression from the U.S. imperialist government and its
hand-picked lackeys.
For those who support Peltier, there is only one question
now: What is the next step for winning freedom for the
Native fighter and organizer?
The campaign for clemency showed the breadth and depth of
support for Peltier. It showed that those concerned with
human rights worldwide see him as a symbol of struggle as
well as a victim of U.S. injustice.
Peltier has been imprisoned for 25 years. He has never
received a fair trial. The FBI forced Myrtle Poor Bear to
sign a false affidavit, then committed fraud upon the
Canadian government by presenting her statement to their
courts of law. The U.S. illegally extradited him from
Canada. Three teenaged boys were terrorized and coerced into
giving false testimonies to the grand jury and at his trial.
A ballistics test reflecting his innocence was concealed
from the defense and the FBI expert gave distorted testimony
to the jury. Today even the United States Attorneys admit
that no one knows who fired the fatal shots.
But Peltier is not just a victim of injustice. He is also a
warrior for justice and deserves support as such. That means
carrying on the battle for his freedom. It means recognizing
his role as representing the political prisoners of U.S.
imperialism.
The struggle for Peltier's freedom continues. And we are all
part of it.
Free Leonard Peltier!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BUSH ON COLOMBIA: MORE INTERVENTION , MORE WAR
By Andy McInerney
To the surprise of few, the incoming Bush administration is
promising to continue, and possibly intensify, U.S.
intervention in Colombia. In particular, administration
spokespeople have emphasized support for the so-called
Plan Colombia under which the Clinton administration sent
$1.3 billion in military and economic assistance to the
Colombian death-squad government.
"The new administration will support Plan Colombia," Gen.
Colin Powell told a U.S. Senate panel on Jan. 17. Powell
sailed through the confirmation process and is now George W.
Bush's secretary of state.
"We believe that this money," Powell told the Senate panel,
"should be used to help the Colombian government to protect
its people, fight the illicit drug trade, halt the momentum
of the guerrillas and ultimately bring about a peaceful and
sensible resolution to the conflict."
The Jan. 20 New York Times warned that Colombia "is likely
to become the most pressing issue on the agenda south of the
border."
The Pentagon sent Gen. Peter Pace of the U.S. Southern
Command to Bogota in the days prior to Bush's inauguration.
"Obviously the new administration will do its own
assessment, but we'll meet our obligations to your
government," he told a Jan. 19 press conference.
Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid
in the world. The recent aid package included some 60 combat
helicopters, counterinsurgency training by U.S. Special
Forces "advisors," and chemical and biological defoliation
agents. Two battalions of elite troops are already trained
and are set to be deployed in southern Colombia this month.
The Putumayo province where they are being sent is a
stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-
People's Army (FARC-EP).
Also this month, the Colombian government is scheduled to
receive 33 H-1N Huey combat helicopters. Sixteen more
advanced Black Hawk helicopters are scheduled to be
delivered in July. Some of these helicopters carry machine
guns capable of firing 50 rounds per second, according to a
Jan. 19 Associated Press report.
NEW RHETORIC ... SAME OBJECTIVE
While overall Pentagon backing for the Colombian government
is set to continue, the Bush administration's war propaganda
shows some differences with the Clinton administration.
Clinton advertised the aid as part of the "war on drugs."
His administration vigorously denied involvement in the war
against the revolutionary movement. Democratic Senators
attached human-rights clauses onto the aid legislation.
Such rhetoric was meant for public consumption only. Clinton
waived the human-rights clauses in the days before
delivering the aid--just a week after Colombian military
troops fired on a group of schoolchildren in September,
killing six. In his last days in office, Clinton
administration lawyers argued that the waiver does not even
apply to upcoming disbursements of military aid.
Some voices in the Bush camp are expressing doubts over the
drug-war rhetoric. Right-wing columnist George Will noted in
a Jan. 18 article that "Colombia's drug-related agonies are
largely traceable to U.S. cities." He called Plan Colombia's
stated objective of completely eradicating Colombia's coca
and poppy production in five years "delusional."
Incoming Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was more
blunt. Speaking to the Senate panel that would confirm him,
he called the drug problem "overwhelmingly a demand
problem."
"If demand persists, it's going to get what it wants. And if
it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be from someplace
else," he said.
Combined with Powell's statement that continued military aid
to the Colombian government would be to "halt the guerrilla
momentum," these admissions point to the inevitable change
of rhetoric that accompanies a new political regime in
Washington.
COUNTER-REVOLUTION IS NOT A POLICY
The driving force behind the escalating U.S. intervention
has never been the war on drugs. Nor has it been
"strengthening Colombian democracy" or "protecting
Colombia's people." U.S. intervention in Colombia is nothing
short of an attempt to shore up the tottering Colombian
government in the face of a powerful revolutionary movement
led by the FARC-EP.
This counter-revolutionary role is not a policy of the U.S.
government that may change from administration to
administration. It is a fundamental feature of modern U.S.
imperialism, by which the Pentagon fights at all costs to
defend and extend the area that U.S. banks and corporations
exploit and plunder--against both imperialist rivals and
revolutionary and popular challenges.
Colombia is a country where the contradictions between the
exploited classes on the one hand and the exploiting classes
and their U.S. backers on the other have intensified to the
point of armed conflict. The FARC-EP and the National
Liberation Army (ELN) represent the desires of millions of
Colombians for a country free of the big landowners and
International Monetary Fund austerity.
The form of U.S. intervention--overt or covert, with
"advisors" or with ground troops--will depend on many
factors, including both the strength of the revolutionary
movement in Colombia and the strength of the anti-war
movement in the United States. The Pentagon undoubtedly
dreads the specter of seeing U.S. workers, students and
others enraged by GIs dying in Colombian jungles.
But the drive to war goes deeper than the wishes of Pentagon
generals and State Department planners. The Pentagon's war
in Vietnam grew from less than 1,000 U.S. "advisors" in 1960
to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops that saw combat
there in less than a decade. The cycle of intervention flows
from imperialism's nature as surely as a hungry predator
will fight to the death for a morsel of food.
The Bush administration's transparent rhetoric about
intervention in Colombia will give activists in the United
States an opportunity to expose U.S. intervention in Latin
America to a wider circle of workers and students--like the
thousands who demonstrated for the first time against Bush's
inauguration on Jan. 20.
It can form the basis for a wave of resistance to U.S.
intervention that can at the same time challenge imperialism
and extend a hand of solidarity to the struggling people of
Colombia.
