F
WW News Service Digest #279
1) Charleston 5: Letter reaches out for labor/community support
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Florida: African American abortion provider framed
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Pride 2001--target ExxonMobil
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) In Algeria's Berber region: Thousands join against gov't
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Workers around the world: 6/7/2001
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CHARLESTON 5:
LETTER REACHES OUT FOR LABOR/COMMUNITY SUPPORT
[ILA Local 1422 President Ken Riley was in New York May 21-24
to gather labor and community support for the struggle to
free the Charleston 5, whose struggle is described in the
letter below.
There are no borders in the workers struggle to combat the
assaults of U.S. trans national corporations. This is the
essence of international solidarity in the epic of
globalization. Mega-merger corporations, their subsidiaries
and subcontractors crisscross the globe, exploiting workers
under the most extreme and life-threatening conditions and
extracting from them billions of dollars in profits daily.
The organized labor movement, here and abroad, has shown
signs of fighting back. From Spanish trade unionists to the
Canadian labor movement to the AFL-CIO, the struggle in
South Carolina by ILA Local 1422 has been a wakeup call.
The anti-globalization and anti-sweatshop movements are
natural allies to the struggle of ILA 1422. The signers of
the following letter have been in close contact with Riley.
Johnnie Stevens of the International Action Center/Labor
Community Outreach told Workers World the signers have
assisted Riley in contacting unions in New York City and
have begun a campaign to reach out to the Harlem community,
to dock workers in Newark and Port Elizabeth, N.J., and
community organizations in Brooklyn with leaflets and
posters.]
Dear friend,
The International Action Center/Labor Community Outreach
wants to bring to your attention the plight of a small
union, predominately African American, under siege in
Charleston, S. C.
On January 20, 2000, the state of South Carolina sent in 600
riot-equipped cops to break up a peaceful picket line
organized by the International Longshore Association Locals
1422 and 1771. The workers were brutally beaten and
arrested. Five members were charged with "inciting to riot"--
felony charges. They are under house arrest with possible
five-year prison terms looming over them.
A Danish shipping company conspired to bring in scabs
illegally and violated union contracts in force for 20
years. The sub-contractor that supplied the scab workforce
has sued the ILA locals' presidents and 27 individual
members for $1.5 million.
Local 1422 is predominately African American. Their members
have been relentlessly subjected to anti-union attacks by
this "right to work" state. South Carolina has the lowest
rate of unionization (3.8 percent) in the country. The
vicious "right to work" laws pits the unions and their
communities against an increasingly racist legislative
assault and a contaminated judicial system.
This racist system allows the state to wage open warfare on
pregnant women, particularly African American and poor
women. Regina McKnight was one of its victims. Allegedly a
substance abuser, she was convicted in 15 minutes and
sentenced to 12 years in prison when her infant was
stillborn. The pro-choice, abortion rights movement is
confronted by the same enemy in South Carolina that has
framed the Charleston 5 to break their union.
The racist, anti-union drive in Charles ton has great
national and international significance in the struggle
against the U.S. drive to dominate and exploit the global
markets. From Maine to Texas, New Orleans, and in between,
corporate USA has tremendously accelerated the volume of
commodities and services shipped in and out.
Due to the North American Free Trade Agreement and numerous
other U.S. global agreements, dock workers are victims of
speed up, high-tech machinery, layoffs, safety violations,
downsizing and subcontracting. Wall Street is determined to
wipe out union-scale wages and working conditions, and
housebreak the unions that move the goods from ship to
shore.
Local 1422, President Ken Riley, the AFL-CIO and affiliates,
and communities are fighting back. This movement is a
strategic force bonded and inextricably linked to the anti-
globalization and anti-sweatshop struggles that have
attracted militant youth from Seattle to Quebec.
These fighters against the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank--the institutions
that insure the capital used to exploit the poor developing
countries with the goal of exorbitant profits--are the
natural allies of ILA Local 1422. They can identify the
treatment of the ILA workers with the brutality they
received from the cops and courts.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, noted African American journalist
imprisoned on death row by a racist criminal injustice
system, eloquently framed the connection: " This anti-
globalist fervor showed the common interests of students, of
anti-imperialists, of human rights activists, and labor."
Johnnie Stevens,
Labor/Community Coordinator
Anne Pruden, 1199 SEIU
Henri Nereaux,
VP Masters, Mates & Pilots, retired
Marie Jay,
Workfairness
JOIN THE MARCH SATURDAY, JUNE 9
COLUMBIA , S.C,.
MARCH: 11 a.m.
Memorial Park,
Gadsden St. & Hampton St.
RALLY: 12 noon
South Carolina State House, Gervais & Main St.
For bus and other information:
Campaign for Workers' Rights
(888) 716-7362
South Carolina AFL-CIO
(803) 798-8300
International Action Center Labor/Community Outreach
39 W. 14 St., #206, NY, NY, 10011
Phone (212) 633-6646
Fax (212) 633-2889
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web www.iacenter org/labor.htm
A contingent is planned for the march and rally
Free the Charleston 5
Free Mumia
Fight racism & union-busting
Organize the power of mass mobilization to unionize here and
abroad
Stop U.S. global domination
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FLORIDA: AFRICAN AMERICAN ABORTION PROVIDER FRAMED
By Naomi Cohen
In a clear case of racist and anti-woman collusion between
right-wing, anti-abortion Florida officials and the Federal
government, Dr. James Pendergraft, an African American
Ob/Gyn and high risk obstetrician, was sentenced on May 24
in Federal court in Florida to 46 months in prison.
Dr. Pendergraft was convicted on trumped up charges of
"extortion." His real "crime" was opening a women's health
clinic that provided abortions in Ocala, Fla., in 1997. The
last women's clinic to open in that city was burned to the
ground in 1989, but the arsonists were never prosecuted.
According to attorney Lucinda Finley, who is representing
Dr. Pendergraft in the appeals process, the trumped up
charges grow out of Dr. Pendergraft's threat to sue Marion
County officials for failing to provide protection for his
clinic when it came under intense attack by violent anti-
abortion demonstrators.
And according to a press release put out by the Right to
Fight Defense Committee, this is the first time in U.S.
history that anyone has been convicted of federal extortion
for "threatening to sue." In fact, the release points out,
Dr. Pendergraft was convicted for utilizing the appropriate
legal channels to seek reasonable protection for himself,
his employees, and his patients.
The conviction and sentencing of Dr. Pendergraft are clearly
aimed at further restricting access to abortion for all
women and terrorizing doctors from providing this much-
needed service. Florida in particular has an infamous
history of anti-abortion violence.
Since 1993, Dr. David Gunn, Dr. John Britton and escort
James Barrett were murdered at the hands of anti-abortion
terrorists outside the Pensacola clinics where they provided
abortions. In addition, clinic fire bombings, threats of
anthrax poisoning, acid attacks and demonstrations by the Ku
Klux Klan in sheets and white robes testify to the ongoing
racist and anti-woman campaign.
The targeting of Dr. Pendergraft illustrates also the way
the federal government, in particular the FBI and the
courts, have joined in the campaign to deny women their
right to abortion. The judge who presided over the trial
refused to grant a change of venue out of the reactionary
Marion County area and did not question prospective jurors
about their personal views on abortion.
The county commission, the FBI case agent, and the attorney
for the county all admitted to being anti-abortion and all
belong to the area churches that organized the campaign
against Dr. Pendergraft and his clinic.
In addition to the fact that Dr. Pendergraft operates five
clinics that provide abortions as well as other health
services to women in Florida, he is nationally known as a
specialist in high-risk termination procedures, which few
doctors are qualified to do. Therefore the attack on Dr.
Pendergraft is also part of the right-wing campaign to end
late-term abortions. Many young girls and women from all
over the country are referred to him when they have nowhere
else to go to get these abortions.
At a meeting in New York City on May 21, just before his
sentencing, Dr. Pendergraft explained that he had been
trained in maternal-fetal medicine. In that capacity, he saw
many women whose fetuses had no chance of survival, yet were
forced to continue with their pregnancies for lack of the
option of late-term abortions.
As a medical student, he also witnessed women dying or
rendered sterile as a result of back alley abortions. It was
then that Dr. Pendergraft resolved to learn safe abortion
procedures in order to provide the care that women needed.
At a time when few doctors are being trained in abortion
procedures, and those few that are trained are under
enormous pressure to stop, the defense of Dr. Pendergraft is
an essential part of the struggle for women's right to
choose.
Funds are needed to help in the legal defense and may be
sent to: Orlando Women's Center, Attention: Right to Fight
Defense Committee, 1103 Lucern Terrace, Orlando, FL 32806.
For more information, see the Defense Committee website at:
www.righttofight.org.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: PRIDE 2001--TARGET EXXONMOBIL
As Pride Month 2001 opens, it's possible to look back with a
sense of accomplishment on the 32 years since the heroic
1969 Stonewall Rebellion opened up the modern phase of the
struggle for lesbian/gay/bi/trans rights.
Under pressure from the lesbian/gay/ bi/trans movement over
three decades, most Fortune 500 companies have enacted
policies banning discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. The movement to obtain domestic partner
benefits has led to victories in thousands of companies that
now offer health insurance benefits.
But the struggle continues. And it needs not only to move
forward, but to defend its gains from new attacks.
The latest reactionary assault comes from the $233 billion
oil monopoly, ExxonMobil. This world-class exploiter of the
labor of 123,000 people in 200 countries and pillager of the
natural resources that belong to humanity now wants to take
back its prior concession to lesbian/gay/bi/trans rights.
The Equality Project, Human Rights Campaign, National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force, National Transgender Advocacy
Coalition, Out and Equal, PFLAG and Pride at Work have
opened a campaign to defend those rights. These groups'
first step was to disseminate a statement exposing and
attacking ExxonMobil's reactionary plans.
The statement explains that before the ExxonMobil 1999
merger, "Mobil's equal employment opportunity policy
included a provision prohibiting discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation. During merger talks, company
executives decided to eliminate Mobil's non-discrimination
policy." They also revoked Mobil's same-sex domestic partner
benefits.
Union workers, by the way, kept their benefits under the
clause in their contract, which shows the advantage of a
benefit won through union solidarity and struggle.
ExxonMobil's attack on employees' gains is not the first
time that big capital--when it grows even bigger by merger
and monopoly--has tried to use that increase in power to
steal even more of the value produced by the working people.
It is a law of capitalist development that the managers of
these giant corporations move in that direction.
But that doesn't mean that the working class--and indeed
anyone affected negatively by management maneuvers--has to
concede to the drives of big capital.
Domestic partner benefits are a material victory for the
entire working class and should be defended and fought for
by the entire class. A ban on discriminating against
lesbian, gay, bi and trans people is equally important to
maintain solidarity and unity among all workers.
What ExxonMobil's reactionary challenge should arouse is a
united fight--whether it be to put pressure on stockholders,
to hold a boycott or to demonstrate.
There is much to be proud of during Pride Month, but nothing
more than the struggle for justice that broke out into the
streets with Stonewall and has continued for 32 years.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
IN ALGERIA'S BERBER REGION: THOUSANDS JOIN AGAINST GOV'T
By G. Dunkel
Since mid-April, severe police and army repression against
student protesters in the Berber region of Algeria called
the Kabylie has aroused broad, mass demonstrations. The
Berber people are also demanding more recognition for their
language and culture within a unified Algeria.
On May 21, 500,000 to 1 million people marched in Tizi
Ouzou, the capital of Kabylie. The Algerian press said the
number was impossible to estimate more precisely since
protesters filled all the city's streets. The Kabylie is
home to about 4 million of Algeria's 31 million people.
Four days later, 20,000 women marched in Tizi Ouzou in a
demonstration called and organized by women. An immense
black banner led the march as a sign of mourning. A woman
named Farida cried out: "Those who are dead are our
children, our brothers, our husbands. When a man of Kabylie
falls, it is a woman who suffers."
Some of his classmates carried portraits of Guermah
Massinissa edged with mourn ing black. On April 18, cops had
arrested Massinissa in a protest over a banned reading of
Berber poetry. They beat him to death in a police barracks.
In protest, students and youths came out first, then
teachers and other workers. Village councils and farmers,
lawyers, women, and doctors and medical personnel have all
marched.
Police have attacked the medical caregivers for treating the
1,000 or so seriously injured by the cops. Between 60 and 90
of those injured have died.
The revolt has deepened, strengthened and broadened as it
moved from students protesting unemployment--two-thirds of
all young people of an age to work are unemployed--to
demands for respect for Berber language and culture. About
30 percent of Algeria's 30 million people are Berber.
The women marching May 25 showed not only grief but
political anger. According to the May 26 Algerian newspaper
Libert�, each contingent carried banners reading, "The
authorities are murderers," "Tamazight [the Berber language]
must be an official national language," and "Down with
injustice and repression."
The book "The Berbers" by Michael Brett and Elizabeth
Fentress (1996) explains that while the Berbers of Kabylie
participated heavily in the national leadership and fighting
forces in the struggle against French colonialism, they
always fought for the independence and unity of Algeria. For
them, Algeria is and was both Arab and Berber.
This helps explain why when the women's march reached the
office of the governor of Tizi Ouzou, the women chanted:
"Correct your history! Algeria is not [exclusively] Arab,"
while waving an Algerian flag.
ALGERIAN PRESIDENT'S REACTION
Other than appointing a commission in late April to
investigate the events in Kabylie, Algeria's President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika did not comment on what was happening
in Kabylie until May 27, when he spoke at an Islamic
Conference.
According to a BBC transcript of his talk, which was carried
on Algerian radio, Bouteflika said this "report will be
published in detail so that all judicial and legal measures
could be taken against those who ignited the fire of
sedition and kindled the ember of division. Severe penalties
are inevitable."
He went on to say that Algeria "is subjected to conspiracies
from inside and outside targeting the stability of all the
Algerian people."
Bouteflika was selected by the army, which is the real
authority in Algeria. He was elected president in 1999 in a
process all his opponents considered so rigged that they
refused to run.
In January 1992 the masses of the population were so
disillusioned with the governing party that Islamic
fundamentalists captured enough votes to win office. The
army then annulled the elections.
Since then, a civil war has raged that has cost at least
100,000 lives. During that same period, the average per
capita income has been cut in half.
ALGERIA'S CIVIL WAR
U.S. and French imperialism have continually wrangled over
which will have greater control of North Africa and its oil.
Each power is on the lookout for internal struggles to turn
to its advantage. This competition has spurred on the
contending forces in Algeria's civil war.
The Algerian army and political establishment have
proclaimed they are leading an irreconcilable struggle
against the right-wing fundamentalists.
But the Free Officers Movement of Algeria (MAOL) claims that
the army has used French mercenaries, a U.S. citizen and
apartheid-era veterans of the South African army to train
its special forces and to improve its communications and
data processing.
MAOL also claims that the Algerian army infiltrated and used
a fundamentalist group called the Armed Islamic Group to
attack Berber villages or communities that were opposed to
the government.
Souaidia Habib, a former officer in the Algerian army,
defended his book "The Dirty War," making the same charge in
the April 17 Le Monde.
Lib�ration, a major national French newspaper, reported May
17 that an anonymous cabinet minister claimed that the
French mercenaries named by MAOL "had left Algeria several
months ago" but denied neither their existence nor that they
had been replaced.
SUPPORT FOR THE KABYLIE STRUGGLE
Bouteflika, the official French press agency AFP and other
major news sources prefer to characterize the struggle in
the Kabylie as a struggle between Berbers and Arabs. But all
the Berber demands are directed at the national government,
for linguistic and cultural civil rights and against police
violence.
Many of the demands made in the Kabylie appeal to all
Algerians who are not part of the establishment. There have
been solidarity actions with the Kabylie involving
progressive sectors of the entire population.
On May 3 in Algiers, the capital, the opposition Socialist
Front called out 25,000 people in solidarity with the people
of Kabylie against government repression.
Algeria is a former colony whose oil, natural gas and
markets are a significant component of the French economy.
There are many Algerian emigrants in France.
Around 5 percent of France's population--2 million to 3
million inhabitants--are Algerian. Another million or so are
from other North African countries.
In early May, Algerian communities in most major cities in
France held demonstrations of 2,000 to 5,000 people in
solidarity with Kabylie.
Students at a number of Algerian universities have also
shown their solidarity. On May 19, according to Le Soir,
some 2,000 students gathered at Bouzar�ah University in
Algiers and attempted to take the streets to show their
opposition to the murders of Algerian youths in the Kabylie.
The cops pushed them back.
In Oran, the major city in western Algeria, there have been
a number of university-based solidarity actions. Lawyers
there initiated a national petition campaign against changes
in the criminal code that would make it easier to prosecute
demonstrators in the Kabylie. (Lib�ration, May 25)
------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD
CUBA: THOUSANDS DEMONSTRATE: STOP BOMBING VIEQUES
Thousands of Cubans, including President Fidel Castro,
marched outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana May 26
to demand an end to the U.S. bombing of the Puerto Rican
island of Vieques. "We are willing to die by their side,"
Cuban student leader Ernesto Fernandez told the crowd.
The massive rally also demanded that activists who have been
jailed in Puerto Rico protesting the bombing should be
freed.
Veteran Puerto Rican independence fighter Juan Mari Bras,
quoted in Prensa Latina, called the demonstration an example
of "how the historical fraternity between Cubans and Puerto
Ricans splendidly blooms through the common cause of the
liberation of our America."
Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States since its
invasion in 1898. Mass protests against the bombing of
Vieques erupted in 1999 when a Pentagon bomb killed David
Sanes, a Puerto Rican worker in Vieques.
COLOMBIA: COMMUNIST NEWSPAPER BOMB THREAT
A massive bomb was found outside the offices of the
Communist Party newspaper Voz [Voice] and the Patriotic
Union party May 21. It was defused before it exploded.
The bomb consisted of over 500 pounds of TNT with a
detonator made of MK-82, a U.S.-made explosive only
available to the military. If it had exploded, it would have
destroyed up to three city blocks around the Party newspaper
office.
"The National Leadership of the Colombian Communist Party is
sure that this is a terrorist action by sectors of the ultra-
right, including paramilitaries, both inside and outside the
State," stated a CP communiqu� following the attempt. "These
sectors are acting to frustrate the process of peace talks."
The Colombian government has been engaged in talks with the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army since
January 1998. These talks are supposed to address the social
roots of the civil war in Colombia. The Communist Party has
been among the many visible civilian supporters of this
process.
Right-wing death squads organized by the Colombian military
have been increasing their terror campaign in recent months.
Hundreds of people have been killed in massacres and bombing
so far this year.
AFRICA: AIR AFRIQUE WORKERS TARGET WORLD BANK
Unions representing workers at Air Afrique have announced
plans for a May 31 international protest against the World
Bank. Workers charge that the imperialist banking outfit is
recommending that the airline be liquidated.
"The World Bank wants today to bury Air Afrique, one of the
rare symbols of African cooperation and integration," union
leader Akwei Adote said. The union is calling on members to
demonstrate at the World Bank headquarters in their
respective countries, including Ivory Coast and Chad.
About 70 percent of Air Afrique is owned by 11 African
states. France and Air France own another 20 percent. The
director of Air Afrique is Jeffrey Erickson, a U.S.
executive. Reorganization plans have provoked protests
across Africa, including February strikes in Senegal.
IRAN: WORKERS PROTEST PRIVATIZATION
Hundreds of workers protested outside the Foundation for the
Disinherited on May 27 to demand that the government reclaim
a textile factory that was privatized last year. The
demonstration was reported by the French News Agency AFP
quoting Iran's official INRA news agency.
"Since the sale of the factory, there has been no investment
and production has been halted," workers' leader Hassan
Shabanlou said. He charged that over 1,700 workers have been
laid off and that workers have not been paid since March.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: 'GUEST WORKERS' DEMAND BACK PAY
Like most of the Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates is no
paradise for workers. While an elite crust of wealthy
families acts as intermediary for Western oil conglomerates--
siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in the process-
-working people are generally brought from outside the
country and have few rights.
For that reason, a May 22 demonstration of several hundred
construction workers in Dubai was more than just a routine
job action. The Indian and Pakistani workers demanded that
they receive unpaid salaries or be allow ed to visit their
embassies to complain.
After the workers began marching through the city, the
Bartawi Group that employs them provided a bus to take them
to the embassy rather than have a public protest.
The Bartawi workers, like many UAE workers, are paid about
$200 a month. They must live in compounds--like company
towns--where all meals and provisions come from the boss.
PERU: PEASANT MOVEMENT SWEEPS COUNTRY
"The agrarian crisis cannot wait." That was the message of a
massive peasant strike that began May 22 in Peru's
countryside. The strike is to demand increased government
credits and an end to the privatization of the water
peasants rely on for irrigation. An estimated 1.7 million
people took part in the strike.
Another of the strike's key demands is to finalize the land
reform of 1969, when the government of Juan Velasco turned
over the title to thousands of land holdings to the
peasants. Julio Cantalicio, head of the National Agrarian
Confederation, charged that "former land owners affected by
the agrarian reform, or their descendents, are preparing a
legal offensive to reverse the distribution of those lands."
Peaceful protests spilled over into roadblocks and there
were clashes with the police on the first day of the
indefinite strike.
The action was a wake-up call to those in Peru's elite who
have been betting that the social crisis facing the Andean
country can be contained within the bounds of bourgeois
elections. Since dictator Alberto Fujimori was forced from
office in 2000, a series of capitalist politicians have
tried to tap the mass anger and direct it into presidential
elections scheduled for July 28.
Both candidates Alejandro Toledo and Alan Garcia now make
demagogic appeals for "democracy" against Fujimori, although
both backed him during his iron-fisted rule. Garcia is only
distinguished in that he led a center-left government in the
1980s that tempor arily nationalized Peru's banks--a move
that sent Peru's ruling class into paroxysms.
The May 22 strike is a sign that whoever claims the mantle
of bourgeois democracy on July 28 will face a social crisis
whose solution lies outside the bounds of capitalism.
