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WW News Service Digest #223
1) Greek troops leave Kosovo in protest
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Enlisting soldiers in the struggle against DU
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Flo Kennedy: An irreverent, outspoken activist
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PENTAGON'S DU PROPAGANDA CHALLENGED:
GREEK TROOPS LEAVE KOSOVO IN PROTEST
By John Catalinotto
NATO's propaganda war defending its use of depleted-uranium
weapons has been set back by revelations of new DU dangers
and a growing political opposition to its policies. On Jan.
24, some 80 Greek troops left Kosovo in protest.
The main argument DU apologists put forth was that even
inside the body, DU could not cause leukemia so quickly.
But scientists found evidence that some DU material
contained small amounts of plutonium, a much more poisonous
element. Even in minute amounts plutonium could cause
cancers quickly.
Within the NATO alliance, European governments objected to
the U.S. failure to keep them informed of all the potential
dangers from DU. This included a failure to inform them
officially of the plutonium contamination resulting from DU
weapons.
At the same time, organizations in Greece, Portugal and
Italy held mass protests and meetings to protest DU use,
demand the withdrawal of troops from the Balkans and attack
NATO for the harm it has done to the Balkans and its
population.
An article in the Jan. 21 London Times reported on the book
"Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War," by Martin Messonnier,
Frederick Loore and Roger Trilling. The book reports that
the U.S. military used DU shells in Kosovo and Iraq that
contained traces of elements that indicate that plutonium
and other highly toxic nuclear by-products were present.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, after decades of official
denials, admitted that thousands of workers at the DU plant
in Paducah, Ky., "had been exposed to radiation and
chemicals that produced cancer and early death."
According to an October 1999 Energy Department report,
"During the process of making fuel for nuclear reactors and
elements for nuclear weapons, the Paducah gaseous diffusion
plant ... created depleted uranium potentially containing
neptunium and plutonium."Plutonium can cause cancer if
ingested even in minute quantities.
NATO's main argument--that depleted uranium itself cannot
cause leukemia--breaks down if it's possible that plutonium
or other extremely poisonous or radioactive elements are
also in the weapons.
The plutonium revelation has already caused German Defense
Minister Rudolph Scharping, who has defended NATO's DU use,
to complain that Washington wasn't keeping its allies
informed. Scharping's political problems with the issue
increased when it was revealed that NATO forces had fired DU
shells at testing grounds within Germany.
Under extreme pressure from popular organizations and media,
leaders of other NATO nations have also tried to distance
themselves from Washington. Most of these leaders are
responsible for following the U.S. lead into the war of
aggression against Yugoslavia in the first place.
On Jan. 22, the World Health Organization opened an
investigation of DU contamination within Kosovo.
THE POLITICAL DIMENSION
NATO's leaders may be underestimating the popular political
opposition, not only to DU, but also to the continued
occupation of the Balkans. This opposition has grown as the
original lies the U.S. and NATO used to justify the war have
been exposed to a wider public.
Soldiers from the occupying NATO countries are unwilling to
risk their lives for the reactionary cause of continuing to
oppress the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, even if the
risk is "relative."
In Greece on Jan. 11, there were demonstrations of thousands
in a half-dozen cities. And more than a third of the 1,400
Greek troops in Kosovo, all volunteers, have requested to be
sent home.
In Rome, the Italian section of the Clark Tribunal--named
for former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark--and the
Committee of Scientists Against War began establishing an
interdisciplinary commission, independent of the government,
to investigate the dangers of DU weapons and the new dangers
from plutonium.
This independent commission would challenge the work of the
government's investigative commission--which is only
studying the effect of DU on the soldiers, not on the
civilian volunteers from the non-governmental organizations
or the population of the Balkans and Iraq.
Clark himself stopped in Rome on his way back to New York
from Iraq. He visited Iraq as part of the International
Action Center's fourth challenge to U.S.-led United Nations
sanctions.
In Rome, Clark participated in a Jan. 19 news conference
with other opponents of DU weapons at the Italian Senate.
The Portuguese Communist Party has called a day of protest
for Jan. 25, with a rally at the Prime Minister's office at
6 p.m. The PCP statement calls for pulling Portugal out of
NATO and working to abolish it. It also attacks the
Portuguese government for sending new troops to Kosovo at a
time when such serious questions regarding threats to the
health of the soldiers have been raised.
In Spain on Jan. 18, the organization that opposes sanctions
against Iraq held a public meeting. At that meeting Gulf War
veterans Carol Picou from the U.S. and Roy Bristol from
Britain told how they were made ill by DU and then abandoned
by their militaries.
Yugoslav President Vojoslav Kostunica attacked NATO for its
use of DU in Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. He added that at
his scheduled meeting Jan. 25 with Hague Tribunal head Carla
del Ponte he will ask that NATO be charged with a war crime
for using DU.
The Socialist Party of Serbia, still led by Slobodan
Milosevic, issued a statement attacking NATO for its use of
DU and demanded that NATO be tried for war crimes.
In the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority accused the
Israelis--who are armed by the U.S.--of using DU weapons
against the Intifada. Though the Israeli government claimed
it had not used DU "this year," it tacitly admitted using DU
in past battles over the past 20 years.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
ENLISTING SOLDIERS IN STRUGGLE AGAINST DU:
OPPORTUNITY FOR ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
[Following are excerpts from a talk by John Catalinotto of
the International Action Center at the Rosa Luxemburg
Conference in Berlin Jan. 13. The conference's theme was
"Human-Rights Imperialism and Resistance," with speakers
from Cuba and the progressive movements in Africa, South
America, the Middle East and Germany.
The daily newspaper Junge Welt organizes this conference
annually when tens of thousands of people from all over
Germany come to Berlin to pay tribute to Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht.
These two founders of the Communist Party of Germany were
murdered by the German military on Jan. 15, 1919, just days
after the communists took responsibility for the Berlin
workers' abortive attempt to seize power earlier that month.]
The two revolutionaries are famous and beloved for their
courageous opposition to Germany's role in World War I. At
the time, the majority of the Social Democratic Party
leadership betrayed their promises to fight against their
country's role in that murderous war.
After this much talk it's time to come back to what we have
to do. And also to come back to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
Liebknecht, whose memory we are commemorating this weekend,
and to Eugene V. Debs, who led the fight of the socialists
in the U.S. against World War I.
How can we continue to build solidarity between the German
and U.S. anti-war movements? How can we broaden this to
build solidarity between the working classes of both
countries?
When Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Debs said the main enemy was
their own ruling classes, the countries they lived in were
at war with each other. That may seem unlikely now, if for
no other reason than that the U.S. is too powerful.
But a more pressing task for the anti-war movements today is
to work out a joint solidarity with those who are under
attack by U.S. and German imperialism--whether this is by
the banks or the armies or the intelligence services.
When U.S. or German imperialism wages an all-out propaganda
attack on a country or a leader, it means that they are
planning war. We have to be ready to respond even if we
don't know all the facts. We have to anticipate the war and
stand up to it. We have to be ready to defend the people-
whether they are in Iraq or Yugoslavia or Belarus or Zim ba
bwe-and to defend the governments of those countries if they
are resisting imperialism.
We have to be capable of answering what I call the "Racak
attack." You know, what happened in Kosovo in January 1999.
The U.S. agent William Walker called a gunfight a massacre.
This signaled that Washington was about to launch the war.
Two of the people who worked with the Berlin tribunal that
put NATO on trial for its crimes in that war, George
Pumphrey and Doris Pumphrey, wrote a wonderful paper
exposing what really happened at Racak. We used this paper
at our NATO war crimes tribunal in New York.
But I'm not talking about how we analyze events later. It's
how we first react quickly and then quickly gather enough
facts to support our convictions, and then how we spread
this truth around the world.
Now can we find a way of working together to respond even
more quickly and with even more solidarity to the next
aggression? Can we possibly do it to stop the aggression
before it starts? The imperialists seem so powerful today.
But they have a weak point. It's called the Vietnam
syndrome.
During the Vietnam War I helped build the American
Servicemen's Union that fought against the war. The soldiers
in the imperialist army are not automatons who just follow
orders out of a stupid loyalty to their masters. A few may
be willing to kill for their masters. But almost no one is
willing to die for them.
In any war we must remember to reach out to the soldiers. I
know there were people here in Germany--I met Tobias
Pflueger and heard of others--who appealed to the troops not
to fight in the illegal NATO war against Yugoslavia. This
was an important step and we must find a way to take it
again.
How will we reach out to the soldiers? Right now we have an
opportunity. There is the crisis over depleted uranium. We
can defend the rights of the soldiers now in the Balkans to
get out of the dangers there from DU. We can demand a full
investigation. We can demand that DU be banned.
And at the same time we can reach out to the other victims
of U.S./NATO aggression. We can demand that NATO be
responsible for removing DU waste from Yugoslavia, and that
the United States pay to clean up Iraq.
We can demand, for example, that the scientists and doctors
from Iraq be allowed to come to Europe and the United States
to take part in the investigation of DU poisoning. They have
the experience. But they have been isolated for 10 years by
the sanctions. We can invite them to come and speak of their
experiences.
There is no contradiction between helping the soldiers to
organize for their rights and helping the Iraqis break the
sanctions and demanding that the imperialists pay for
cleaning up the Balkans and Iraq.
Right now we see contradictions somewhere else. Between Rome
and Washington, between Paris and Washington. Perhaps
between Berlin and Washington.
We--the anti-war movements--should remain in solidarity with
each other. But we can take advantage of the contradictions
among our enemies--our own ruling classes.
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FLO KENNEDY: AN IRREVERENT, OUTSPOKEN ACTIVIST
By Sue Davis
New York
When Florynce "Flo" Kennedy died on Dec. 22 after a long
debilitating illness, the progressive movement lost a
generous, dedicated, irreverent, outspoken activist. Flo so
hated racism, sexism and capitalism that her name became
synonymous, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, with the
struggle for social justice.
She was born in 1916. One of five daughters of a Pullman
porter, Flo was raised with Black pride and resistance. Her
father was legendary in Kansas City, Mo., for standing off
the Ku Klux Klan with a shotgun when they tried to drive him
from the home he bought in a mainly white neighborhood.
After graduating from Columbia University with honors, Flo
was the first African American woman to attend Columbia Law
School. Though initially denied admission, she threatened a
lawsuit and went on to graduate in 1951. One of her most
famous cases was representing the estates of jazz greats
Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker to recover money owed them
by record companies.
Though she became totally disillusioned with the courts and
eventually stopped practicing law, Flo handled a number of
high-profile cases during the 1960s and 1970s. These
included the Panther 21, H. Rap Brown (now known as Jamil
Abdullah Al-Amin) and a female member of the Black
Liberation Front who was acquitted of bank robbery charges.
Flo lent her name and her resources to many progressive
causes. For instance, she endorsed countless anti-war and
pro-liberation initiatives organized by Youth Against War
and Fascism. YAWF was the youth group of Workers World Party
that led many important struggles during the 1960s and
1970s.
Flo spoke at the first major demonstration of the women's
liberation movement in New York in 1970--the revival of
International Women's Day organized by YAWF Women.
When JoAnn Little was on trial in 1975 for killing the white
jailer who tried to rape her, Flo turned her Rolodex over to
those in Workers World Party who were organizing support for
the young Black woman.
Wherever Flo saw injustice, she pounced on it. She founded
the Media Workshop in 1966 to combat racism in advertising
and the media.
At a memorial held Jan. 11 at New York's Riverside Church,
Black TV journalist Gil Noble said he had Flo to thank for
his job.
To combat sexism, Flo founded the Feminist Party, which
nominated Shirley Chisholm for president in 1972. Also in
1972, Flo filed suit against the Roman Catholic Church of
New York, alleging that its reactionary political
activities, especially in opposition to abortion, violated
the church's tax-exempt status.
Dubbed "radicalism's rudest mouth" by People magazine in
1974, Flo knew how to formulate a concept as neatly as the
meat in a nutshell. "If you want to kill poverty, go to Wall
Street and disrupt," she wrote in her autobiography, "Color
Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times."
A friend remembers her telling a judge who reprimanded her
in the early 1970s for wearing pants, "I'll ignore your
dress if you ignore my pants."
When asked by a man who heckled her during a public lecture
if she was a lesbian, she responded, "Are you my
alternative?"
Known as much for her flamboyant outfits, cowboy hat and
long lacquered nails as for her outrageous quips, Flo
continued her activism long after she was forced to quit the
lecture circuit because of a bad back.
She kept up a progressive drumbeat by producing a weekly
interview show on public-access cable TV for two decades.
Known and respected by a wide range of people in public
life, Flo was lovingly celebrated at the memorial by such
people as former New York Mayor David Dinkins, the Rev. Al
Sharpton, Father Lawrence Lucas, Judge Emily Goodman, Ti-
Grace Atkinson, and her sister, Faye Kennedy Daly.
Flo Kennedy would not want us to mourn her loss but to
organize a broad social movement to fight racism, poverty
and war, all of which the thoroughly reactionary Bush
administration embodies. Flo Kennedy, live like her!
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