WW News Service Digest #337
1) Large protests erupt in NATO countries
by WW
2) Mumia Abu-Jamal: The new colonialism
by WW
3) Providence, R.I., groups storm utility hearing
by WW
4) Milwaukee protest hits war, racism
by WW
5) Turkey political prisoners' death toll rises to 73
by WW
6) Venezuela land reform moves ahead
by WW
7) Letters to Workers World: Bush and the Cubana bombing
by WW
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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC GOV'TS FEEL ANTI-WAR HEAT:
LARGE PROTESTS ERUPT IN NATO COUNTRIES
By John Catalinotto
Hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East to
Africa to Europe took part in major demonstrations against
the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan the weekend of Oct. 12-13.
Two of the larger protests took place in the heart of major
NATO powers--in London and Berlin.
These actions took place as the U.S. continued bombing
Afghanistan, using cluster bombs and killing Afghani
civilians. This put the onus of terror on the Pentagon in
the eyes of much of the world.
Bush's war of "long duration" showed all signs of being an
imperialist war to arrange the division of the world and its
energy resources--especially in the Middle East and Central
Asia. British and German participation in this war makes
even clearer its predatory character.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been traveling around
the world trying to build up support for the "coalition"
Washington is using to back its moves against Afghanistan.
Blair is a more articulate defender of imperialist interests
than Bush, but there is no way of separating Britain's role
from its history of colonialism, especially in that area.
British imperialism is in the role it has occupied since
1945--junior partner of U.S. imperialism. While its
political leaders put their experience running the British
Empire at the service of Washington, they make sure the
British ruling class gets its share of the plunder.
But while the New York Times happily reprints Blair's
speeches, he has aroused growing opposition at home.
What distinguished the march in London, which organizers
said was 50,000 strong, was the broad multinational
participation. There was an especially large contingent from
the Muslim community--mainly South Asian--living in England
that is now about 4 million people.
Salma Yakoob of the Stop the War Coalition in Birmingham,
speaking in Trafalgar Square, described it well: "If only
the leftists had been here today, people would have said we
were all lefties," she said. ''If only CND [Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament] had been here, they would have said it
was the middle-class elite. If it was only the Muslims, they
would have called us extremists. If it was only Asians and
Black people, they would have said it was the ethnic
minorities.
"Tony Blair, we are here united against this war. You cannot
dismiss us all.'' (The Independent, Oct. 13)
British anti-war activist Jean Hatton told Workers World,
"The most popular placard carried by the demonstrators
seemed to be 'Not in our name,' a slogan used widely by
protesters against sanctions on Iraq. Others highlighted the
double standards employed by Western nations, where the
deaths of thousands in Iraq caused by these sanctions go
largely unreported."
She added that even neighborhoods in smaller cities saw many
expressions of solidarity between the historically British
and the immigrant Muslim population, and a strong feeling
that the people of Afghan istan should not suffer any
additional hardships.
"There is great unease across Britain. Even people who
supported the bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq are asking what
can possibly be achieved by bombing a country already
devastated by war," Hatton said.
A NEW ROLE FOR GERMANY
Since 1945, Wash ing ton has led the vast majority of
military assaults in the world, from Korea to Kosovo. London
and sometimes Paris send their troops in behind the
Pentagon; at times they act on their own. The German
military, however, was supposed to stay put--unless it was
fighting the USSR under NATO command.
Now for the first time Berlin has been openly invited to
take part in the action, and the Social Democrat/Green
government is jumping at the chance to send German youths to
their death.
In a major speech on Oct. 11, German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder said, "The willingness to provide security through
the military is an important declaration for Germany's
allies." It "means a new self-conception of German foreign
policy.... Avoiding every direct risk cannot and must not be
the guideline of German foreign and security policy."
(Washington Post, Oct. 12)
He added, "There are more reasons why Germany must show its
active solidarity ... historical reasons, contemporary
reasons, and reasons to do with the position of Germany in
the future."
Schroeder's speech found an echo. "This is a defining moment
for Germany and its role is being fixed," said Karl Kaiser,
director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. "It
didn't go unnoticed that when Bush spoke of the coalition
around the U.S., he said it was Britain, France, Australia
and Germany. And that has enormous meaning."
The Christian Democrats also back this aggressive policy.
Only the Party of Democratic Socialism refused to vote for
German participation in the war on Afghanistan.
This new eagerness to send their youth--working-class youth,
that is--into danger should be recognized for what it is.
This is a declaration that the German government wants to
guarantee that German imperialism gets its share of the
spoils. In the current crisis, that means its share of
Middle East and Central Asian oil and gas.
PROTESTS IN BERLIN AND STUTTGART
As in the U.S. and Britain, an ever-larger part of the
German population began to fear that the Pentagon's bombing
of Af ghan istan would kill and maim innocent people there
and only increase the dangers at home.
In Berlin a reported 50,000 people came out against the U.S.
war. Another 25,000 marched in Stuttgart.
Ruediger Goebel writing in the Berlin daily newspaper Junge
Welt on Oct. 15 noted that these protests were significantly
larger and more youthful than any during NATO's aggression
against Yugoslavia two years ago, with large numbers of high-
school students taking part.
This new youth activism is important, as it directly
confronts the move by German ruling circles to participate
in military adventures around the world. Some of these
youths had participated in anti-globalization actions.
Sebastian Schluesselburg, representing secondary-school
students, expressed the youths' dissent in a clear voice at
the Berlin protest. "Retaliatory military strikes have no
backing in the German student body, Mr. Chancellor," he
said. Earlier in the week students in Berlin had defied
threats of school punishment to take part in anti-war
activity.
Germany still has a drafted army, although it is moving in
the direction of a more streamlined, professional and
motorized force. A vocal opponent of German militarization,
Tobias Pflueger, has already called upon German youth to
refuse service and on German soldiers to refuse to take part
in any support of the U.S.'s open-ended war.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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FROM DEATH ROW: THE NEW COLONIALISM
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are
independent.
--Benjamin Disraeli,
British statesman]
With the news that American political leaders are involved
in intense meetings with the deposed King of Afghanistan is
the revelation that the United States is trying to install a
king over another people.
What's wrong with this, people?
How does it make sense for a nation that calls for democracy
to impose, with its guns and military might, a royal house
upon a foreign people?
Muhammad Zahir Shah, an octogenarian who was overthrown from
the Afghani throne back in 1973, is now living in Rome and
is being groomed to be reinstalled in Kabul by the U.S.
government.
Gone from his homeland for almost thirty years now (28, to
be precise), why does the U.S. want to seat him, when the
Afghani people have expressed no significant interest in his
return for almost three decades?
It is hard for one to resist the temptation that the U.S.
wants to put in a puppet that it can manipulate, control and
rule through.
What seems clear is that the U.S. is doing, this time
through military means, what it has done before in the
region through spycraft.
In the 1950s, the CIA brought about the removal of Iranian
premier Muhammad Mossadegh, to return the Shah to power,
which in turn led the nation down the road that turned Iran
into a repressive state, to keep oil under Western control.
Are the Afghanis somehow too primitive (in U.S. eyes) to
appreciate the principle of democracy?
What emerges from this U.S. attempt to install a potentate
is the reality that the Americans don't really give a damn
about democracy.
Almost all of the states in the region that the U.S. calls
allies are as far from democracies as the earth is from the
moon. If the U.S. cared about democracies, why has U.S.
foreign policy for the last half-century been the
protection, sustaining and arming of anti-democratic
dictators? From Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in
Indonesia, the Duvaliers in Haiti, to Mobutu in Zaire, and
on and on.
Indeed, we need not go that far.
The recent elections in Florida, which featured racial and
ethnic profiling of Black, Haitian and Jewish voters there,
and thereby denying them the opportunity to meaningfully
participate in the U.S. democracy by voting, proves that
Americans need not go abroad to protect or promote
democracy.
There is something unseemly about a nation that came into
being by declaring independence from a king to urge a king
upon a foreign people. Democracy begins at home.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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PROVIDENCE, R.I.:
GROUPS STORM UTILITY HEARING DEMANDING: "NO SHUTOFFS!"
By Michael Shaw
Providence, R.I.
On Oct. 11 Rhode Island anti-poverty groups invaded the
offices of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) to
demand an immediate change in shutoff policies for utility
customers who can't pay their bills.
The Peoples' Utility Fairness Coalition organized the
action. The coalition includes ACORN, R.I. Gray Panthers,
Coalition for Consumer Justice, Parents for Progress, United
Workers' Committee, George Wiley Center and National
Peoples' Campaign.
As winter approaches and the economic downturn hits more
workers, approximately 7,200 households in this small New
England state are scheduled to have their utilities shut
off. These distressed families must cough up from 50 to 100
percent of their back bill to be reinstated.
Fed up with being ignored since Oct. 7, 2000, when the Wiley
Center petitioned the R.I. Division of Public Utilities to
hold hearings concerning the antiquated shutoff rules now in
effect, Oct. 11 became the date for confrontation with the
PUC and its greed-based barriers to basic human needs.
The goal of the intervention was to convince the members of
the Public Utilities Commission to immediately adopt, on an
interim basis, the coalition's recommendations for post-
shutoff rules. These proposed rules embody a graduated
forgiveness program like those already in effect in several
states, so that low-income persons can reasonably meet their
financial obligations by paying 10 percent of their back
bills.
The multinational gathering of several dozen outraged
petitioners began with a rally outside the PUC offices on
Jefferson Boulevard. Then activists stormed into the
building and headed for a room where the three PUC
commissioners were holding a hearing on long-distance
regulation.
James Lanni, assistant administrator for operations and
consumer affairs, prevented the group from entering this
hearing. The activists would not be put off, however, and
forced Lanni to a separate hearing room where they vented
their frustration and personal testimonies in front of the
stonewalling bureaucrat.
One Latino mother shouted that her heat has been shut off
for months and that her four children are suffering health
problems as a result. "Some utility's corporate profits are
not as important as this woman's four kids. It's getting
cold!" another woman screamed at Lanni.
At first Lanni pleaded to the group that there was no way
the commissioners could meet with them that day. However, he
caved in when the angry crowd threatened to disrupt the
hearing in progress. Lanni promised that the activists could
meet with one or more of the commissioners later that day at
4 p.m.
At that meeting Commissioner Kate Racine agreed to a special
hearing on the shutoff issue to be held Oct. 23.
Wiley Center leader Henry Shelton said that at that hearing
the coalition will not merely demand that its progressive
plan for shutoffs be implemented. It will also demand that
the 7,200 R.I. households without utilities have their power
restored immediately, before the cold of late fall sets in.
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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MILWAUKEE PROTEST HITS WAR, RACISM
By Workers World
Milwaukee bureau
"One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war" was
the message in Milwaukee Oct. 13. Over 75 protesters at the
Henry Reuss Federal Building came out to say: "U.S. out of
Afghanistan and the Middle East!"
"We send our most heartfelt sympathies and condolences to
those who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks Sept. 11. But bombing Afghanistan and other
Middle Eastern countries, or reactionary legislation under
the guise of fighting 'terrorism' is not the answer," said
Art Marburg of A Job is a Right Campaign, sponsor of the
protest, which was endorsed by over a dozen progressive
organizations.
AJRC led a delegation to Washington, D.C., for the Sept. 29
International ANSWER demonstration.
The Milwaukee anti-war, anti-racist demonstration demanded:
stop bombing Afghanistan; money for victims' needs, not
corporate bailouts and war; no to anti-Arab, Muslim and
South Asian racism; stop the war on Arab-Americans and
Muslims; stop the theft of our rights; no U.S. war drive
domestically or internationally; and money for jobs,
education, healthcare and housing, not war.
Held in the heart of Milwaukee's shopping and financial
district, the protest at the Federal Building was spirited
and met by friendly passersby honking their car horns in
support.
Immediately after the beginning of the AJRC anti-war
protest, a feeder march swelled the numbers at the federal
building. A few blocks east a consortium of peace groups had
concluded their rally as part of the International Day of
Protests to Stop the Militarization of Space. They then
marched down Wisconsin Avenue to meet at the Federal
Building.
Jean Verber, an organizer with Women and Poverty Public
Initiative, while honoring the Sept. 11 victims, focused on
class issues. She called the W-2, or Wisconsin Works,
program terrorist. This racist program has forced thousands
of women into poverty, said Verber.
More anti-war, anti-racist actions are being planned.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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POLITICAL PRISONERS IN TURKEY: DEATH TOLL RISES TO 73
By John Catalinotto
Hundreds of Turkish political prisoners began an unlimited
hunger strike a year ago that turned into a fast to the
death. Since Oct. 20, 2000, some 73 prisoners have died.
Over a hundred others have lost their memories from
malnutrition.
Turkish prisons have always been places where political
prisoners faced the threat of beatings and often of death.
But this hunger strike is directed against something the
prisoners regard as even more threatening: complete
isolation.
The many political prisoners--10,000 of Turkey's 70,000
prisoners are behind bars because of their membership in
revolutionary organizations--had in the past been able to
have contact with each other in dormitory-style settings. It
was possible to carry on political discussion and education
and to organize to defend what little rights remain inside a
prison.
But the Turkish regime announced a year ago it would isolate
the political prisoners in "F-style" prisons in individual
cells, in an attempt to break them psychologically. This
type of prison organization uses sensory deprivation--
another type of torture--to weaken the prisoners.
U.S. and German imperialism, whose politicians boast of
commitment to individual freedom, have been using these
brutal prison techniques for years. These countries are also
the dominant foreign powers in Turkey, supplying the army
with weapons and training and dominating the Turkish
economy. It was almost inevitable their Turkish clients
would apply U.S. prison methods.
On Dec. 19, 2000, Turkish soldiers attacked 20 prisons and
killed 31 political prisoners. The other 42 deaths have been
from the hunger fast that prisoners continued after the
attack that day.
Those who called the hunger strike included imprisoned
members of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front
(DHKP-C), the Communist Party of Turkey--Marxist-Leninist
(TKP-ML) and the Communist Workers Party of Turkey (TKIP).
Their supporters have been circulating a petition demanding
that Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit stop the brutal
massacre of the prisoners and stop all plans to use "F-
style" prisons in Turkey.
On the year anniversary of the start of the hunger strike,
demonstrations have been called to raise these demands
before the world. In New York, a demonstration is set for
46th Street and First Avenue on Oct. 19, near the Turkish
Mission to the United Nations.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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VENEZUELA LAND REFORM MOVES AHEAD
By Leslie Feinberg
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is reportedly about to sign
into law an "agrarian revolution" that will dispossess many
of the country's richest landowners and turn over their
estates to poor farmers. According to a 1998 government
census, 1 percent of the population of Venezuela owns 60
percent of the country's arable land.
The legislation could limit farm size in some regions to 250
acres and empower the state to expropriate idle land without
compensation to the owners of giant estates and cattle herds
known as latifundios.
"The latifundio is the enemy of the country," Chavez said in
an October speech about land reform.
The landslide election of Chavez in 1998 sparked a political
revolution that is showing signs of developing into a social
transformation. Chavez enjoys a base of support among the 80
percent of Venezuelans who live in poverty.
Big landowners were already enraged when Chavez, flanked by
visiting Cuban officials, parceled out 101,000 acres to
2,164 peasants in early September. The owners of the massive
private estates vowed to fight the more equitable
redistribution of the land.
"I believe it is the beginning of the Cubanization of
Venezuela," stated Sisoes Valbuena, who bemoaned the loss of
360 acres of his family's 7,400-acre ranch to landless
peasants during the ongoing land reform.
But peasants who have no land on which to eke out an
existence have been emboldened by the call for an agrarian
revolution. In the town of Machiques, squatters fought
landowners recently when the rich owners of the estates
tried to evict the poor.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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LETTERS TO WORKERS WORLD
BUSH AND THE CUBANA BOMBING
That was a great article by Leslie Feinberg about a million
people demonstrating in Havana on the 25th anniversary of
the terrorist bombing of a Cubana airliner. Here's some
additional information about that atrocity in which 73
people died.
The CIA director at the time was none other than George
Herbert Walker Bush, who later, of course, became president.
This bombing was retaliation for Cuban aid to the people of
Angola. Cuban soldiers were helping to beat back an invasion
from the apartheid regime that existed then in South Africa.
Some 1,800 Cuban soldiers would give their lives for African
liberation.
Orlando Bosch--cited in Feinberg's article as being
convicted in Venezuela with Luis Posada Carriles for this
airplane bombing--was actually pardoned from jail by
President George Herbert Walker Bush. Bosch was serving time
for a bazooka attack on a Polish freighter in Miami harbor.
According to the New York Times of Aug. 17, 1989, right-wing
congressperson Ros-Lehtinen met with President Bush-the-
first to negotiate Bosch's release.
Ros-Lehtinen's campaign manager "just happened" to be Jeb
Bush. A little more than a decade later, Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush helped steal the election so that his brother George W.
could get to the White House.
Stephen Millies
New York
PRISON HUNGER STRIKE
I just received Vol. 43, No. 33 and read the article on the
hunger strike regarding Texas prisoners. I am on the Gib
Lewis High Security unit in Texas. And reading that article
made me snap. I have begun a hunger strike due to similar
accusations. I am 21 years old and have a 50-year sentence
and don't want to continue to live in filth. They do not
give us anything to clean with. They have six doors covered
with steel over the windows. They close them for 15 to 30
days. We can't see nothing. The CIOs receive our food, it is
cold and cups are dirty. Please let it be known I am on
hunger strike for justice. Texas is a joke and all about
money.
James Bell
Woodville, Texas
