WW News Service Digest #304
1) Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen, murdered in India
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Germany: Same-sex couples win rights
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) The real terrorists
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) San Diego victim of police remembered
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Oakland, Calif.: No super jail for kids
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) New York rally protests Charas/El Bohio center eviction
by "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:44
Subject: [WW] Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen, murdered in India
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PHOOLAN DEVI: THE BANDIT QUEEN--
OPPRESSORS IN INDIA MURDER A SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE
By Sara Flounders
Phoolan Devi, a militant leader known as the "bandit queen"
and famous as a symbol of the struggle of lower-caste and
oppressed Indians, was assassinated in New Delhi on July 25.
She was 44 years old.
India was oppressed as a British colony for hundreds of
years. Winning independence in 1948, capitalist India had a
modest amount of independence maneuvering between the
socialist USSR and U.S. imperialism.
The new U.S.-ruled world order of unrestrained capitalism
has increased the already wide gap between rich and poor
within India, where the caste system provides a deeply
ingrained form of prejudice akin to racism.
This caste system, which Devi fought, is used to justify
extreme discrimination and oppression in every area of
social and economic life.
Leaders of the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, the party Devi
represented in the Indian Parliament, claim that her
assassination is a political conspiracy of the elite. It
comes at a crucial time when the right-wing nationalist BJP
Party faces a close election against the Samajwadi Party in
the biggest state in India, Uttar Pradesh.
Devi's rallies had been drawing many thousands of angry,
oppressed people.
Phoolan Devi rose from an illiterate peasant girl to an
internationally known bandit to a famous political prisoner
freed by a rising mass movement to a representative in the
national parliament. Her assassination sparked rebellions
and mass demonstrations.
As The Times of India wrote on July 28, "Phoolan Devi was a
phenomenon like no other in Indian politics."
Devi is known in the West through a 1994 movie about her
life called "Bandit Queen." Its graphic portrayal of caste
and sexual violence against women created an uproar in
India.
In India Devi was a legend before the age of 20 as the
leader of a gang of dacoits--robbers who preyed on the rich
upper castes and shared the spoils with the impoverished
lower castes. She made international headlines in 1981 when
she was charged with the biggest murder of upper-caste male
landowners in modern Indian history.
A THREAT TO THE SOCIAL ORDER
As described in the biography "India's Bandit Queen" by Mala
Sen and in the movie "Bandit Queen," Devi's early life
experience was similar to that of millions of Indian women.
As a girl in a large, impoverished family of the oppressed
"mallah" caste, she was considered only a burden. She was
married off at age 11 to an abusive and brutal man of 33.
She escaped at age 12 and traveled alone, hundreds of miles,
back to her village. But an unattached young woman who had
abandoned her marriage was considered a threat to the whole
social order.
In an isolated village, she was the prey of other powerful
men. Her determination to speak out against the theft of her
father's tiny plot of land and her effort to take the matter
to court earned further attacks.
She wound up in a band of dacoits or bandits, becoming the
gang's leader by the age of 16. Many hundreds of bandit
gangs lived in the treacherous crags and narrow eroded
ravines of rural Uttar Pradesh. Gang life was part of the
upheaval in the decaying feudal social order.
Even the gangs were divided by caste. Some gangs acted as
protectors of the landlord classes and in league with the
police worked for payoffs, like paramilitary gangs in Latin
America. Others gangs of poor and landless rebels offered a
kind of protection for the peasants who were abused by the
corrupt and higher caste police.
Not that the gangs were revolutionary guerrillas. Their
struggle was not aimed at overturning the social order or
even at organizing the masses to demand their rights. But
they represented class hatred and outrage at the injustice
of a rotting, caste-ridden, class society.
A SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE
Phoolan Devi became famous. Newspapers across India wrote
tirelessly of her exploits.
A Phoolan Devi doll with a bandoleer of bullets strapped
across her chest and a red bandana was one of the hottest-
selling toys in India.
In 1980 she was captured. Her lover was killed. She was
turned over to the upper-caste men of the village of Behmai.
There she was held and gang raped for weeks.
She was almost dead when friends smuggled her out of the
village.
After her escape she reorganized a gang and allegedly
returned a year later for revenge. Twenty-two men of the
elite Thakur caste were gunned down.
The act sent shock waves through the elite of India. Many
Indian politicians and business owners belong to this caste.
The state launched the biggest dragnet ever conducted.
Thousands of police were assigned to the case. For three
years Phoolan Devi eluded capture.
Press coverage was intense. There was enormous political
pressure for her capture.
The killings were considered an outrageous act for a woman
and especially a woman of such a low caste.
SURRENDER ON HER OWN TERMS, THEN BETRAYAL
Finally Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered that if Phoolan
Devi couldn't be captured, surrender on her own terms could
be arranged. In February of 1983, with most of her gang dead
and her health failing, she surrendered.
The agreed terms were that her family be given a plot of
land, that she not be hanged, and that she and the rest of
the gang serve eight years in prison, then all charges be
dropped.
Her surrender became the occasion of a mass outpouring of
tens of thousands of cheering peasant supporters. Emaciated,
standing only 4 feet 9 inches tall, she stepped before the
crowd carrying her rifle and wearing a bandoleer of bullets
over her shoulder and a red bandana on her forehead.
Her picture was on front pages worldwide.
Once she was in prison, the government reneged on all deals.
For 11 years she languished until an upsurge in the mass
movement in Uttar Pradesh in 1994 forced her release.
Devi was a symbol of resistance. Her election to the
national Parliament was an assertion of the rising mass
movement. Although still illiterate, she became an astute
political leader.
But the old propertied classes hated everything she stood
for. In an effort to wear her down, for the next seven years
they continued to heap over 70 criminal indictments against
her, including murder charges.
Phoolan Devi faced constant death threats. She traveled with
security. In the month before her death the ruling right-
wing BJP had ordered the security cut back. She then applied
for a license to carry a gun but was refused, supposedly due
to her criminal record.
Phoolan Devi said it was her early anger and outrage at the
endless acts of submission demanded of poor, low-caste women
that fueled her rebellion. Millions of rural poor rallied to
Phoolan Devi because she had taken the law and the gun into
her own hands and gained revenge for acts of horrendous
brutality.
Her struggle revealed the real conditions of life for tens
of millions of poor women. The capitalist market in India
and the pressure of corporate globalization has intensified
poverty, feudal caste oppression and class antagonism. The
assassination of Phoolan Devi will only heighten this
growing anger.
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:46
Subject: [WW] Germany: Same-sex couples win rights
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
GERMANY: SAME-SEX COUPLES WIN RIGHTS
By Heather Cottin
A German law providing a range of partnership rights to
same-
sex couples was scheduled to take effect Aug. 1 after a July
18 court ruling upheld it. The measure permits same-sex
couples to register their relationships.
The German Constitutional Court rejected a move by the
states of Bavaria and Saxony to block the law, clearing the
way for it to take effect.
Reactionary Christian Democrats in Bavaria had called the
law "the greatest attack on the institution of marriage in
decades." But last Nov. 10, when the lower house of
Parliament passed the law, Manfred Bruns of the German
Lesbian and Gay Association called it "a historical day for
lesbians and gays in Germany."
Same-sex couples now will be able to make their
relationships official in all state registry offices. Under
the partnership law, couples can share a common surname, and
have spousal-type rights in areas including inheritance,
health insurance, child custody and alimony.
Germany still maintains some tax discrimination against
same-
sex couples. Also, same-sex partners are still legally
barred from adopting children.
Several European countries have granted various rights to
same-sex relationships. In only one country, the
Netherlands, same-sex couples can be legally married.
In the United States, only Vermont has implemented a law
providing substantive partnership rights to same-sex
couples. However, since President Bill Clinton signed the
1996 "Defense of Marriage" Act banning federal recognition
of same-sex relationships, couples registered under
Vermont's law face further battles when they try to actually
claim their rights.
Still, the advances toward winning equality for same-sex
relationships, internationally and in the United States, are
extremely significant--especially considering that the
modern movement for lesbian, gay, bi and trans liberation
only began in 1969. None of these legal developments would
have been possible without the movement that has pressed for
change. The extension of partnership rights in Germany,
which will cover foreigners as well as German nationals, is
the latest but not the last in a series of hard-won
victories.
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:47
Subject: [WW] The real terrorists
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: THE REAL TERRORISTS
Terrorists struck again in Nablus on July 31. They murdered
two children, 8 and 10 years old. Along with the children
they ended the lives of six young men, political activists
who worked for the rights of their people.
The terrorists had no hand-made bombs. They didn't risk
their lives, let alone try a suicide attack. They were
equipped with the latest in military technology from the
U.S. merchants of war. They struck from helicopter gun ships
that came so quickly and quietly that people in Nablus
didn't even hear them coming, so the reports said.
They were the professional killers of the Israeli military
machine. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, himself an
experienced mass murderer who engineered the massacre at the
Sabra and Shatila camps outside Beirut in 1982, gave the
orders to open an all-out war.
Whatever mild rebukes might come from Washington, all U.S.
governments since the creation of the Israeli settler state
have given full military, economic and diplomatic backing to
this all-out war against the Palestinian people.
It's a war on a people in revolt against the occupation of
their land and oppression of their population. Even after
the Israeli blitzkrieg on Nablus, thousands of Palestinians
had the courage to go back out into the streets as an
immediate response. They were saying that the Second
Intifada, the uprising that began last September- provoked
by Sharon-would continue.
This latest attack was on an office of Hamas, an Islamic
group playing a leading role in the Intifada. Two days
before, the Israelis had blasted and killed six other
Palestinians, members of Fatah, the Palestinian government
party that Yasser Arafat heads.
The Israeli terrorists seem determined to show the world
they will murder anyone representing Palestinian self-rule,
and that they have no intention of participating in any
honest "peace process." Sharon and Co. want instead to
increase and extend their occupation of Palestinian lands
and the oppression of the people.
The Palestinians from both these groups have pledged they
will continue the fight. The people in the streets have
shown they will continue the struggle for freedom.
For the solidarity movement worldwide and in the United
States, there is no choice but to continue to demand that
U.S. and European imperialism end its support for Israel and
that Israel get out of occupied Palestine.
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:49
Subject: [WW] San Diego victim of police remembered
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
SAN DIEGO, CALIF.:
VICTIM OF POLICE REMEMBERED
Two years have passed since San Diego police gunned down
unarmed Black athlete Demetrius DuBose. Since his murder,
San Diego cops have killed at least 16 more unarmed people.
When members of the Ad Hoc Coalition to Commemorate the
Death of Demetrius DuBose gathered July 24 with protest
signs at a busy San Diego intersection, they found wide
support. The sound of motorists honking their horns in
solidarity continued almost nonstop for the duration of the
demonstration.
--San Diego WW bureau
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:50
Subject: [WW] Oakland, Calif.: No super jail for kids
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
OAKLAND, CALIF.:
"NO SUPER JAIL FOR KIDS"
On July 28, over
500 people, mainly Asian, Black and Latino youths, rallied
in front of City Hall in Oakland, Calif., to protest the
building of a 450-bed juvenile jail in Alameda County.
The so-called super jail for kids would make it one of the
biggest detention halls in the country. Demonstrators
called for the $130 million earmarked for the jail to be
used on Oakland's deteriorating schools.
Without even any data to pretend to justify it, Alameda
County officials are rushing to approve the jail. It would
be located in Dublin, a 45-minute drive from Oakland.
One organizer told the crowd that if they build it they will
fill it with you and your brothers and sisters. She called
on everyone to build a movement to stop the super jail for
kids before it begins.
--Bill Hackwell
From: "WW " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 7. elokuu 2001 08:52
Subject: [WW] New York rally protests Charas/El Bohio center eviction
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 9, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NEW YORK RALLY PROTESTS
CHARAS/EL BOHIO CENTER EVICTION
By G. Dunkel
New York
With spirit, a jazz band, drums galore, puppets from the
Czechoslovakian American Puppet Theatre, wolf masks, dancing
costumes, Little League uniforms, bicycles from the Recycle-
a-Bike program, and the enthusiastic support of the Service
Employees Local 32B-32J Summer Youth Brigade, on July 28
some 300 people marched from Union Square to the Charas/El
Bohio community center on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Charas faces eviction by a greedy real-estate speculator
named Gregg Singer. In 1998 Singer bought the community
center, occupied and renovated by community members for over
30 years, from the city. Ever since, he has been trying to
put Charas and all the services it provides to the working
and poor people of the Lower East Side on the street.
Charas grew out of a successful struggle to build community
gardens in the 1970s. For 20 years or more, real-estate
speculators have been trying to turn the neighborhood into a
Gold Coast for the affluent and drive the extremely diverse
working-class community away.
Institutions like Charas have fought back, drawing a
surprising amount of support. The Vieques Support Campaign,
Lower East Side Tenants Union, WBAI in exile all use the
facilities Charas supplies and took part in the march.
Politicians like Bronx Borough President and mayoral
candidate Fernando Ferrer, City Councilmember Margarita
Lopez, whose district is the neighborhood, and U.S. Rep.
Nydia M. Vel�zquez all spoke at rallies for Charas. Lopez
and Vel�zquez took part in the march.
Community organizer Miguel Maldonado, who co-chaired the
rally at Union Square, summed up the general feeling:
"Buildings are for people, not for profits. We have to keep
up the struggle."
