WW News Service Digest #301
1) Justice for Janitors wins contract
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) LA 8 get reprieve in court
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Northern Ireland: Tensions at a boiling point
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Fury in the Balkans
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Human Rights Watch: Creating the pretext for U.S. intervention
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 31. hein�kuu 2001 06:33
Subject: [WW] Justice for Janitors wins contract
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 2, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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BIG GAINS FOR LOWEST PAID:
JUSTICE FOR JANITORS WINS CONTRACT
By Joe Piette
Philadelphia
Janitors in suburban Philadelphia office buildings have won
their first union contract.
Up to 1,000 new members of Service Employees International
Union Local 36 have won pay increases to at least $8 an hour
for all part-time workers and $9 an hour by Dec. 31, 2004.
Full-time hourly pay will increase to a minimum of $9.50 an
hour.
Most of the workers live in Philly's most oppressed
neighborhoods. Many commute two to three hours a day for
part-time jobs that had paid between $6 and $8 an hour with
no benefits.
The workers also won health insurance benefits in the
agreement, signed by American Building Maintenance Inc., One
Source Inc., Unicco Service Co., the Arthur Jackson Co. and
HGO Services.
Other contractors have signed union-recognition agreements,
but have not agreed on contracts yet. The July 19 precedent-
setting contract could eventually affect as many as 4,000
suburban janitors.
Unionized janitors in Philadelphia's Center City typically
earn $12.45 an hour, plus health insurance, vacation and a
pension. Union spokesperson Cynthia Kain said it usually
takes several contracts for suburban and city workers to
reach parity.
The campaign for union recognition, a living wage and
benefits such as affordable health care included a May 7
picketing of the Brandywine Realty Trust annual meeting.
Brandywine is the largest landlord in the Philadelphia-South
Jersey market.
THIS CAMPAIGN COULDN'T BE IGNORED
Justice for Janitors also demonstrated at 10 Penn Center in
Center City--the headquarters of the Rubenstein Co., the
fourth-largest building owner in the Philadelphia suburbs.
While their unionized janitors within the city earn over $12
per hour plus benefits, Rubenstein's janitors in the suburbs
took home only $6 an hour total.
Unlike office towers in the city, the suburban buildings are
scattered over four counties. Among SEIU's actions were car
caravans--with bullhorns, sirens and honking horns-such as
in the Plymouth Meeting office parking lot.
Such loud and visible tactics pressured building owners to
tell their cleaning contractors to settle peacefully with
SEIU and end the disruptions.
The Philadelphia Justice for Janitors campaign is part of an
East Coast effort to unionize 20,000 janitors from northern
New Jersey to Washington. Workers in Hudson County, N.J.,
recently won an agreement with cleaning firms that increased
wages from $5.75 to $10.75 an hour.
After the July 19 press conference, Philadelphia and
suburban janitors took a "Justice Bus" down to Baltimore to
help a Justice for Janitors union campaign there and
participate in civil disobedience, blocking traffic near
Inner Harbor tourist attractions.
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 31. hein�kuu 2001 06:34
Subject: [WW] LA 8 get reprieve in court
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 2, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FOUGHT DEPORTATIONS FOR 15 YEARS:
LA 8 GET REPRIEVE IN COURT
By Preston Wood
Los Angeles
After 15 years of U.S. government efforts to deport them,
the LA 8 have won a major victory in their struggle for
justice.
In a ruling released on June 28, Judge Bruce J. Einhorn held
that if the Justice Department wishes to continue to try to
deport two of the LA 8--Michel Shehadeh and Khader Hamide--
it must do so using the charges for which they were arrested
in 1987, under the now-defunct McCarren-Walter Act.
Shehadeh, Hamide and the other LA 8 defendants were singled
out for their political activities. They were active in
building solidarity and support for the struggle of the
Palestinian people for justice. Throughout the proceedings
against the LA 8, the seven Palestinians and one Kenyan were
never accused of any criminal act. Their only so-called
"crime" was to support the rights of the Palestinians.
The Walters-McCarren act, used during the anti-communist
McCarthy period to harass and jail political activists,
declared it a crime to "advocate world communism." The
current ruling specifies that the government, if it decides
to continue its case against the LA 8, must use these
McCarren-Walter Act charges rather than charges made later
on in the case.
In earlier rulings, federal judges had in fact ruled that
the LA 8 were being targeted for their political views.
The McCarren-Walter Act charges were eventually dropped, but
false charges were then leveled against the eight defendants
as a means to continue to harass and deport them.
In 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a shocking decision,
ruled that in fact immigrants living in the U.S. can be
singled out and deported for their political views. At that
time, Shehadeh, Western Regional Director for the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and Co-chair of the
Los Angeles-based Save the Iraqi Children Committee, told
Workers World, "It's McCarthyism all over again. But this
time it's not communists and other progressives, but
immigrants who are the target."
The government throughout the years has openly admitted that
if the LA 8 were U.S. citizens they would not have been
charged. The significance of the case lies in the fact that
the U.S. government is maintaining that immigrants do not
have the right to exercise free speech while living here.
The government is also trying to deny due process to any
immigrant slated for deportation and sweep away the right of
any immigrant to equal protection under the U.S.
Constitution.
The new ruling is a significant victory for all immigrants
and is a setback for the government.
>From his office in Orange County, Shehadeh told Workers
World, "This is a significant win in our fight against the
government's attempt to deport us based on our
constitutionally protected pro-Palestinian activities. When
we win this fight, all immigrants will win with us. Because
if the government succeeds in their precedent- setting
attempt to silence opposition to its unfair policies in the
Middle East, it will next move to silence all political
dissent in America."
In spite of 15 years of harassment and mistreatment of
Shehadeh and his family by the U.S. Justice Department, he
has remained a leading activist in the struggle of the
Palestinians for justice and self-determination. He is
currently a leader in the Los Angeles Free Palestine
Coalition, which has mounted large demonstrations and grass
roots organizing against the Zionist occupation of Palestine
and for justice for the Palestinian people.
On Aug. 26 the FPC will hold a Day of Solidarity with
Palestine. For more information call (714) 636-1232 or (213)
487-2368.
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 31. hein�kuu 2001 06:34
Subject: [WW] Northern Ireland: Tensions at a boiling point
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 2, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NORTHERN IRELAND: TENSIONS AT A BOILING POINT
By Sue Kelly
In the six counties of north Ireland, gangs of "loyalist"
youths have been rampaging through cities and towns during
the annual summer "marching season" of these Irish right-
wing groups.
The term loyalist goes back to 1690, when the Protestant
king William of Orange defeated the Catholic king James II.
That battle has become the rallying cry and excuse for
bombs, murders, arson and destruction against Irish
republicans--those who want to end British rule so Ireland
can be a united, sovereign and independent republic.
The loyalists are an extreme faction of the unionist
movement, so-called because it is for continued union with
Britain. They have the support and collusion of the British
government, which still occupies the six counties 80 years
after the rest of Ireland won its independence.
This time of year also has meant even greater violations of
the civil rights and safety of the nationalist and
republican--predominantly Catholic--communities.
Homes, churches, a sports club and a hospital in the
nationalist communities have been among the targets of
loyalist mobs, bombs, snipers and arsonists in the recent
round of violence. A daycare school in north Belfast was
riddled with bullets.
A loyalist group called the Red Hand Defenders claimed
responsibility for attacking the children's center. They
stated, "All nationalist people [are] hostile and legitimate
targets." Seven children and daycare workers were forced to
huddle in a toy cupboard to avoid the shots.
A Catholic church in County Tyrone was bombed and Catholic-
owned small businesses in Newtownstewart were targeted by a
mob of nearly 100 loyalists in the early hours of July 12,
the high point of the Protestant marching calendar.
Nationalist residents were forced to flee their homes in
east Belfast as heavy rioting followed intense loyalist
provocations.
"Families living near loyalist areas are being terrorized on
a daily basis, and tensions here have reached a boiling
point," reported the Republican News on July 22.
In the meantime, the current Irish peace process, based on
the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), is mired in the
refusal of the loyalist/unionist forces to cooperate. They
attempt--again with British government assistance--to blame
all delays on the nationalist/republican position,
specifically the Irish Republican Army and the nationalist
political party Sinn Fein. In fact, the IRA has maintained a
four-year-long cease-fire and Sinn Fein has honored every
promise it made since the signing of the agreement in 1998.
Sinn Fein chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin points out that
the key points of the three-year-old agreement have not been
implemented. These include ending the widespread violations
of human rights by the Royal Ulster Constabulary--the police
force in the six counties--and the removal of the thousands
of British troops stationed there.
The problem is the failure of the British government to get
out of the six counties, or even to live up to its
responsibilities under the GFA in all the key areas:
policing, human rights, criminal justice, demilitarization
and equality of treatment. A joint proposal from the British
and Irish governments is expected to be announced at any
moment, but many do not expect much.
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 31. hein�kuu 2001 06:35
Subject: [WW] Fury in the Balkans
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 2, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: FURY IN THE BALKANS
Even as George W. Bush readied his triumphant visit to U.S.
occupation troops in Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, thousands of
youths set back his agenda when they attacked the U.S.,
German and British embassies in Macedonia's capital of
Skoplje on July 24. They were protesting NATO complicity in
the assault on their country, which borders Kosovo and used
to be part of the Yugoslav federation.
NATO--especially Washington and Berlin--for years has armed,
supplied and trained the right-wing Albanian chauvinist gang
that goes by the names KLA in Kosovo and National Liberation
Army in Macedonia. The KLA/NLA is attacking and murdering
Macedonians with the goal of establishing a "Greater
Albania."
For a decade relentless anti-Serb and anti-Milosevic
propaganda blamed the former Yugoslav president for every
Balkans ill. NATO even used its kangaroo court in The Hague
to charge him with war crimes.
Who then is responsible for the near civil war in Macedonia?
Slobodan Milosevic is out of power and in jail.
The reports from Macedonia today bear an uncanny resemblance
to those from Kosovo three years ago. And this in spite of
the fact that the Macedonian government has been compliant
to U.S. and NATO's wishes for years. It was one of the first
of the Yugoslav republics to allow a U.S. base on its soil.
NATO is supposed to be its friend.
Some friend. Macedonian government spokesperson Antonio
Milosovski was being super cautious when he said, "NATO is
not our enemy but it is a great friend of our enemies who
are attacking the future of our country."
Speaking of moves by U.S. envoy James Pardew and Francois
Leotard of the European Union, Milosovski added: "The
activity of international representatives in the Republic of
Macedonia and the actions of the paramilitary organization
are very well-coordinated." (Los Angeles Times, July 25)
Pardew and Leotard said they were shocked, utterly shocked,
by these charges. An unnamed Western diplomat--likely one of
them--told the media, "I think we're in a period of hyper-
nationalism. They're lashing out at the entire international
community. That's very damaging to negotiations and very
dangerous for the people of this country.''
"Hyper-nationalism" seems to mean a small nation's
resistance to being completely overrun by predatory
imperialism. That's what Yugoslavia was guilty of. For the
NATO leaders, Milosevic's real crime was being president
during 78 days of heroic Yugoslav resistance.
The "hyper-nationalism" charge sounds like a threat. It
sounds like 1998. The U.S. and NATO may claim they are
"honest brokers" between the KLA gang and the Macedonian
government, but thousands of Macedonian youths are perfectly
correct to consider them liars. NATO intervention in the
Balkans has brought neither peace nor stability but more
war, and the Macedonian youths deserve every solidarity in
their struggle against it.
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 31. hein�kuu 2001 06:36
Subject: [WW] Human Rights Watch: Creating the pretext for U.S.
intervention
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 2, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: CREATING THE PRETEXT FOR U.S. INTERVENTION
By Heather Cottin
The ruling class has never had much trouble with hypocrisy.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence
extolling the 18th century Enlightenment doctrine of natural
rights of "Life, liberty and happiness" while he owned
scores of slaves and defended the institution of slavery.
Today, George Soros's Human Rights Watch upholds Jefferson's
legacy of deceit, murder and plunder for the ruling class of
the 21st century.
In 1975, "Helsinki Watch" was created to monitor what it
termed "human rights abuses." It was the main institution
that spread anti-Soviet propaganda. With the support of
financier George Soros, the organization grew into what is
now called Human Rights Watch.
Soros established the Open Society Institute in New York
City with the money he had made in investment exploits. His
company, the Quantum Group, was the most successful
financial fund in the world in its over 30 years of
investment history. Soros has operated "hedge funds," which
create nothing but produce superprofits for himself and his
fellow investors.
Working with Soros on the Human Rights Watch's Europe
Committee are former Assistant Secretary of State for
Intelligence and Research Morton Abramowitz, who was in the
Reagan and Bush administrations, and Paul Goble, a
commentator on Radio Free Europe--a major Cold War
enterprise funded by the U.S. Congress and the CIA.
According to the group's own Web site, Ken Roth, the
Director of HRW, "criticizes the United States for not
opposing China more in relation to its alleged human rights
abuses." Roth's record includes the creation of the Tibetan
Freedom Concert, a traveling propaganda project that toured
the U.S. with major rock musicians, urging young people to
support Tibet against China.
AGAINST CHINA AND YUGOSLAVIA
Roth has recently pressed for opposition to Chinese control
over its oil-rich western province of Xinjiang. With the
colonialist "divide and conquer" approach, Roth tries to
convince some of the Uighur national minority in Xinjiang
that the U.S./NATO intervention in Kosovo holds promise for
them.
Roth was also a major supporter of the B92 radio station in
Belgrade that backed the Oct. 5, 2000, coup that overthrew
Slobodan Milosevic.
Human Rights Watch leaders operate on the belief that the
United States may restructure any society, and calls this
its "civilizing mission." They write in their propaganda,
"The Soros Foundation network supports civil society" in any
number of nations.
But what do they mean by "civil society"? Career diplomat
Herbert Okun, on the Europe Committee of Human Rights Watch,
is connected to a bunch of State Department-linked
institutions, from USAID to the Rockefeller-funded
Trilateral Commission.
>From 1990 to 1997 Okun was executive director of something
called the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, part of
USAID, "to help establish free market financial systems in
former communist countries." So civil society, to the Soros
Foundation and to Human Rights Watch, must include this sine
qua non of capitalism: a free market financial system.
Warren Zimmerman, U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia during the
destabilization and war, is another honcho in Human Rights
Watch. Now a professor of diplomacy at Columbia University
training future U.S. diplomats to view the world as he does,
Zimmerman is on the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
In Zimmerman's Contemporary Diplomacy Course at Columbia,
students have to be ready to write about "dealing with NATO
expansion, raising the American profile in sub-Saharan
Africa, forging an American approach to Central Asia and its
energy wealth, and increasing interest in and support for
U.S. foreign policy among the American people."
A PROPAGANDA MACHINE
Human Rights Watch bolsters the interventionism of U.S.
foreign policy with an aggressive association of government
departments, NGOs, academics, and foreign policy
institutions connected to the CIA and the U.S. State
Department. But Human Rights Watch has a specialized
mission. It creates propaganda, which helps do what
Zimmerman's students must learn: to create support at home
for U.S. foreign policy.
There is barely a story in the Western press about "human
rights abuses" in any nation that does not include some
mention of a report from Human Rights Watch. Reports of such
"abuses" then back up State Department policy claims that
the U.S. intervenes for "humanitarian" purposes.
The Soros Foundation oversees a network called "Defending
Human Rights Worldwide," and has affiliates writing and
investigating conditions in Africa, the Americas, Asia,
Europe/ Central Asia, the Middle East/North Africa, and the
United States.
SIDING WITH THE OPPRESSOR
In Africa, HRW's first concern is with Zimbabwe's rich
farmers of European origin, who own on the average 20,000
acres of land. African liberation war veterans there have
squatted on these lands, prodding Robert Mugabe's government
to turn some of them over to the Africans. Zimbabwean
farmers average less than three acres and the population's
average income is $200, but HRW ignores these problems.
Human Rights Watch doesn't see food and the right to a
decent life for every individual on earth as a basic human
right.
Colombia certainly does have human rights problems. The
Colombian army and its paramilitary units--also known as
death squads--commit murder, bombing and the forced removal
of tens of thousands of Colombians with the support of the
U.S. military. The crimes are so obvious that HRW admits
that the Colombian military commits 80 percent of the human
rights violations--though even that is an underestimation.
But then HRW lauds President Andres Pastrana and his Armed
Forces chiefs, claiming they "have made strong statements
against paramilitaries."
HRW saves the brunt of its criticism for the rebel army FARC-
EP, charging those who fight for the oppressed with human
rights crimes.
In the Middle East, Human Rights Watch calls for "observers
to monitor Israeli and Palestinian human rights violations,"
putting an equal sign between the militarist actions of the
Israeli oppressors and the self-defense of occupied
Palestine.
BEHIND IT ALL, CAPITALIST HATRED OF SOCIALISM
After seeing how HRW reacts toward the oppressed of the
Third World, especially those involved in revolutionary
struggle, it's easier to see HRW's anti-communism against
China and in Eastern Europe as the clear expression of the
capitalist class it represents.
Human Rights Watch on July 13 said that the selection of
Beijing for the 2008 Olympics would call for "corporations,
computer telecommunications, and media companies" to work
for the promotion of what HRW calls "full freedom of
expression." Of course this means expression that undermines
socialism, "anywhere in China."
"In China," said Sidney Jones, Asia Director of Human Rights
Watch, "the private sector is going to have to get engaged."
In early July, Human Rights Watch justified the abduction of
Slobodan Milosevic, which they called "an historic precedent
with a sound basis in international law," though no such
legal justification existed for this act of international
kidnapping.
The Lukashenko government of Belarus in 1997 closed down the
Soros Foundation because of its opposition to socialist-era
institutions there. But Soros continues to fund "grassroots
organizing, education . . . with support going to
individuals with the potential to become leaders."
Human Rights Watch funds the Croatian Helsinki Committee for
Human Rights, founded in 1993 "to promote human rights in
Croatia." In 1995, Croatia and the U.S. government
cooperated on Operation Storm, which involved the ethnic
cleansing of 300,000 Serbs from the Krajina region where
they had been living for over 600 years.
The Croatian Helsinki Committee was mum on this outrage. All
it did to offer support for the Roma people, who had also
been strategically cleansed from Croatia, was distribute t-
shirts with "I am a gypsy" inscribed upon them.
Human Rights Watch reports are quoted everywhere, in every
organ of the capitalist media. HRW "experts" give
"testimony" in Congress and its members teach in major
universities.
HRW spokespeople give each other awards all over the world.
They proudly proclaim the right of the United States to
restructure any society. They affirm that U.S. society is
superior, and Washington has the right to intervene in
military, cultural and political arenas.
Human Rights Watch is the propaganda organ of globalism and
recolonization.
HRW recognizes no ethical values other than its own, and it
opposes any seizure of property from the rich and redistribution
to the poor as a violation of its idea of human
rights. In Soros's view, equality is not a human right. And
his view is the State Department and the CIA's view; it
reflects the foreign policy of both Democratic and
Republican parties.
Soros pays his piper to play his tunes, justifying the role
of the U.S. as the world's only super power. But other major
supporters of this insidiously powerful propaganda tool
include leading liberal philanthropic agents such as OXFAM,
the Mac Arthur Foundation, the Dr. Seuss Foun dation, Norman
Lear, the Plough shares Fund and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Human Rights Watch is filling the strategic needs of the
international ruling class, but it is a sham, as anyone
observing its role of protecting the rich growing richer as
the poor grow poorer can clearly see.
