From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [New-Worker-News] New Worker Online Digest - 2/11/2001
New Worker Online Digest
Week commencing 2nd November, 2001.
1) Editorial - Ceasefire now!
2) Lead story - Stop this criminal bombing.
3) Feature article - Accident and Emergency services worsen.
4) International story - Blair on fool's errand to Arabia.
5) British news item - RMT safety war with C2C goes on.
1) Editorial
Ceasefire now!
BUSH and Blair are worried. Good! Support for their so-called
"anti-terrorist" coalition is weakening and peace demonstrations are
growing throughout the world.
And no wonder. The relentless bombing raids on Afghanistan have brought
death and injury to civilians, increased the number of Afghan refugees
camped out on the border with Pakistan and prompted the United Nations and
the aid charities to warn of a humanitarian catastrophe this winter.
In plain language this means large numbers (some estimate millions) of
people -- people who had nothing to do with the 11 September attack on the
US -- could die from hunger, cold and disease if the war makes it
impossible for relief -- to get through to those in need.
But Bush and Blair think they'll get away with this murder if they drop a
few food parcels in amongst the bombs and give some money to help Pakistan
cope with the new wave of refugees caused by the bombing
raids.
These cynical and callous gestures won't wash. Certainly the people on the
receiving end of the bombs and missiles are not going to thank their
aggressors for sending them a packed lunch, plastic cutlery and a damp
napkin. And the mounting concern in Britain and the US will not go away
because the refugees and injured victims might get a tent and blanket
courtesy of western aid.
So, Blair is now looking anxiously at the opinion polls which show support
for the war is beginning to slip. There is open disquiet within the
Parliamentaty Labour Party itself and in the wider labour movement.
As well as the growing concern about the effects of the bombing on the
innocent people of Afghanistan, there is considerable anxiety about the
whole purpose and strategy of the war. The politicians and top military
brass on both sides of the Atlantic seem incapable, or unwilling, to speak
with one voice or to say what their real objectives are.
Some talk of the war being nothing more than a matter of arresting bin
Laden as quickly as possible. (This is the version that is used when
talking to the worried Pakistani leadership). Others hint that the war
could last for years or even go on indefinitely.
Even the catch-all term, "war against terrorism", is alarming since
Washington gets to decide who the "terrorists" are and what should be done
to them. It is no secret that the US ruling class regards every
organisation and every state that resists imperialism to be considered as
"rogues" and "terrorists".
Certainly, if the US were to define "terrorists" as those who kill
innocent people for political, economic or strategic gain, the US state
would itself stand accused on count after count.
And what of the military tactics? The Bush/Blair clique assert that the
bombs and missiles are aimed at military targets and that civilian
casualties are unfortunate "collateral damage".
Yet Bush's expression of surprise that the Taleban leaders show no sign of
throwing in the towel gives the game away -- Bush clearly hoped the bombing
raids would by now have borne fruit. In other words it is a policy of using
bombs to terrorise the people and their leaders.
Most people would be surprised if the Taleban had given in. Who advises
this man? Does the US State Department know anything at all about
Afghanistan? We might also ask why the US leadership can't even remember
its own sorry history -- millions of tons of bombs, napalm and Agent Orange
were poured onto Vietnam and still the American forces were kicked out.
Blair of course really should know better -- the bombing raids on Britain
during the Second World War did not lead to capitulation nor did it lead to
defeat.
The biggest lie of all is the assertion that the war is the only way to
keep people safe from terror attacks like the events in New York and
Washington. In the first place, a war by the world's richest state against
the world's poorest, using millions of tons of high-tech weaponry is,
without a shadow of doubt, going to make even more people throughout the
world have reason to fight imperialism.
In the second place, the underlying injustices are being swept aside. US
and British policies in the Middle East and Central Asia do need to be
changed. The US should take its troops out of Saudi Arabia. The
Palestinians should have their just rights restored. Sanctions should be
lifted from Iraq and the bombing of that country ended. This is the way the
world can find its way back to peace.
*********************
2) Lead story
Stop this criminal bombing.
by our Middle East affairs corresponent
AMERICAN bombers are pounding Afghanistan in the forth week of imperialist
aggression which has left over 1,500 Afghan civilians dead and many more
wounded.
Across the Third World leaders and governments are calling for a halt to
the senseless bombing while in the Western heartland's opposition to the
war has spread from protests on the streets to misgivings in the corridors
of power.
And in Afghanistan the people are closing ranks around the Taleban regime
as anger grows at the random air strikes on homes, schools and hospitals.
Afghan morale high
Taleban leaders show no sign of wavering under attack, challenging the
Americans to meet them on the ground and face their fighting men.
Morale is high, buoyed up by the capture and execution of a Western stooge
last week. They've told the thousands of Pakistani volunteers -- mainly
Pushtoon (Pathan) tribesmen on the other side ofthe border -- that their
help isn't needed.
A small number of Western journalists have been invited into the country
to see the civillan destruction for themselves. And the puritanical
strictures against music have been relaxed leading to renewed singing of
patriotic ballads including the song of the Battle of Maiwand, written at
the time to mark the defeat of British impenalism during the Second Afghan
War (1878-1880).
Agent of imperialism
Humayoun Arsala, known as "Abdel Haq" was a notorious mujahadeen fighter
during the campaign against the old communist government of Afghanistan,
who was feted in the West.
Abdel Haq met Margaret Thatcher several times in London when she was in
power as well as US President Ronald Reagan. One of his famous "victories"
was the bombing of Kabul airport, which killed 28 mainly school children on
their way to Moscow for an educational trip, which he justified as a
warning to "people not to send their children to the Soviet Union".
Though a prominent Pathan tribal leader he soon fell out with his
mujahadeen allies after their victory in 1992 retiring to live as
businessman operating in Pakistan and the Arabian Gulf. But he retained his
contacts with the CIA, British and Pakistani intelligence, in the hope of a
comeback. Two weeks ago he was approached by Western agents and encouraged
to return to Afghanistan to tout for support for the return of the old
king, who lives in exile in Rome. Last Friday his luck ran out.
Entering the country secretly with large amounts of money and American air
cover he was lured to a meeting and captured by Taleban loyalists.
The next day he was summarily tried for treason and hanged in Kabul
together with two of his supporters. An American agent who entered the
country with him is on the run but the Taleban say that one CIA agent has
been captured.
American troops
This week Washington admitted that American troops were now operating in
northern Afghanistan -- some 200 "advisers" to the anti-Taleban Northern
Alliance which controls two enclaves in the north of the country.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that fewer than 200 specialist
troops were on the ground and added that "ground involvement" was for now
limited -- "not anything like ground forces in World War 2, Korea or the
Gulf War" he said but added ominously "but nor have we ruled that out".
Imperialist plans to replace the Taleban with a puppet government headed
by the old king have been shelved for the time being. Now they are pinning
their hopes on a new Northern Alliance offensive against the strategic town
of Mazar es Sharif and Kabul itself. American jets are hitting Taleban
positions around Kabul and along the front-line with the Northern Alliance.
But the alliance -- two northern warlords and some of the mujahadeen
leaders Taleban drove out -- shows no sign of being able to do the job on
their own. Taleban troops actually drove the Alliance out of one small town
in the north last week and there's been no attempt to dislodge them from
their positions around the capital.
Prolonged war
Calls for a bombing pause during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan have
been rejected but fears that an Afghan war could last for years and trigger
off violence throughout the Islamic world are now being taken seriously.
Pakistan's army regime is under fire, far beyond the small Islamic
movements that back the Taleban and from many more who want the return of
an elected government.
peace now
Pakistan's two major parties are keeping a low profile at the moment,
doubtless waiting for General Musharraf to become even more unpopular
before playing their hand. But the massacre of Christians in a Pakistani
church on Sunday shows that communal violence and pogroms could easily
flare up if the war continues, and not just in Pakistan.
The Blair government says it's ready to commit at least 200 commandos for
combat in Afghanistan and no-one knows where it will end. The small Welsh
nationalist Plaid Cymru party is publicly calling for an end to the bombing
-- a view reflected by a number of Labour MPs who have formed a new
parliamentary peace lobby to campaign to end the war.
Peace protests and vigils are taking place all over Britain and the next
mass peace march and rally starts on Sunday 18 November. Mass mobilisation
for peace can stop this war. It must be done!
*************************
3) Feature article
Accident and Emergency services worsen.
by Caroline Colebrook
ACCIDENT and Emergency services are getting worse rapidly according to a
report published bv the Audit Commission last week.
The report shows that patients spend longer waiting to see a doctor even
though the Government has invested millions of pounds in the departments
and there are now some more doctors working in A&E departments.
The commission's survey of 200 A&E departments in England an Wales found
that waiting times at most trusts have steadily deteriorated since 1996,
the year before Labour came to power.
The figures show that in 1996, in 70 per cent of depart ments, the average
waiting time to see a doctor or nurse practitioner was less than an hour.
Last year 30 per cent of patients were seen by a doctor or nurse
practitioner within an hour in only 15 per cent of A&E departments.
Only 40 per cent of A&E departments managed to admit 80 per cent of their
patients within four hours.
There are huge regional variations, with patients in London having to wait
around twice as long as the average time for the country as a whole.
The commission pointed out that waiting times have increased everywhere in
spite of a rise in the number of doctors.
The commission blamed poor management and in particular the failure to
deploy more nurse practitioners. It described them as a "missed
opportunity".
Only five per cent of A&E departments have nurse practitioners in
significant numbers, even though 60 per cent of patients attending A&E
departments have only minor injuries.
Brian Dolan, a freelance nurse consultant in emergency care, said: "There
is a lot of rhetoric about expanding nursing roles, but in many A&E
departments we still have clinicians saying they don't want nurses to
request X-rays. That is about territory, not about patient care."
Another big problem is the shortage of beds in the rest of the hospital
for the casualties to be moved into.
The report said: "If a doctor is short of beds and can't admit patients
fast enough, they pile up in A&E and impede the operation of that
department. Delays in admission can hold up the assessment and treatment of
other patients in A&E."
Another big criticism of many A&E departments was he time taken to
administer vital drugs to patients admitted after heart attacks.
Only a third of A&E departments could prove they gave thrombolysis
(clot-busting) drugs within 30 minutes to at least 75 per cent of patients
presenting with a heart attack.
The report was even more concerned that many departments failed to keep
proper data on these matters. It found that six trusts supplied no data at
all while another 29 A&E departments had no computers and had to sift
through patient records to find the data.
The truth is that patient waiting times have steadily declined both under
the Tories and under Labour following the savage round of hospital closures
by the Tories in the early 90s.
London lost a high propertion of its A&E units so it's hardly surprising
that queues have grown longer in those that have survived. The country as a
whole lost thousands of beds.
Labour was elected on promises that it would reverse this trend but
instead it has continued to close hospitals or to transfer them via the
private finance initiative to halfway privatisation. This cuts even more
beds.
Meanwhile, last week, the Government decided to close yet another
hospital: Harefield in west London. This hospital runs the largest heart
and lung transplant programme in the world and has carried out more than
2,000 such operations since 1980.
The announcement was hardly noticed as it was made on the same day as the
first air strikes against Afghanistan.
Health Secretary Alan Milburn last Thursday announced a doubling of the
number of NHS patients to be treated in private hospitals as a way of
relieving pressure on NHS bed space.
He said he would spend f40 million over the next 18 months on procuring up
to 25,000 operations in the private sector.
Thus public money which could have provided hundreds more NHS beds is
being diverted into private pockets.
*************************
4) International story
Blair on fool's errand to Arabia
by Our Arab affairs correspondent
TONY BLAIR is on a whistlestop tour of Arabia, trying to hold the line for
US imperialism and hoping that at least some of the Arabs will continue to
toe the line on the Afghan war.
Stopping first at Damascus for talks with President Assad, Blair wings
down to Saudi Arabia to meet the King and Crown Prince and then back to
Israel for a session with General Sharon and a possible meeting with
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
In a ground-breaking summit with Syrian leader Bashar al Assad -- the
first time a British premier has ever gone to Syria Blair called for more
Arab support for the anti-Afghan coalition and hinted about new ideas to
end the fighting in Palestine.
But if he hoped for an easy ride in Damascus he was sadly disappointed.
Syria wanted the bombing to stop. "We cannot accept what we see every day
on our television screens, whereby hundreds of innocent civilians are
dying," the Syrian leader told Blair.
President Assad made it clear that Syria wanted the underlying roots of
tension in the world to be resolved, to "pull the rug from under the
terrorists" Assad also stressed that "terrorism" and resistance were not
the same. "We have made distinctions between terrorism and resistance, and
insisted on the distinction between Islam and terrorism," he said. "The war
against terrorism must be settled by a group definition of this phenomenon,
by international co-operation, by solving the problem at its roots".
Blair gave no public clue to what he has in mind for Palestine and
normally few Arab leaders would care anyway given Britain's marginal role
in the region these days as a cheerleader for US imperialism. It's slightly
different today. Blair talks as if he speaks for Washington -- whether he
does remains to be seen.
And some idea of what these "new ideas" has been given by Israeli Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres, the uneasy Labour ally in Sharon's grand coalition.
Peres is talking about a ceasefire, followed by a "goodwill" complete
Israeli pull-out from the Gaza Strip which would involved the closure of
two Zionist settlements. Tel Aviv would recognise an independent
Palestinian state with authority over the existing "autonomous" zones --
while the thorny questions of the rest of the West Bank, Jerusalem and the
refugees would be left for later negotiations.
The chances of this getting off the ground are less than zero as it gives
the Arabs nothing more than what they've already got though its clearly all
that General Sharon is prepared to offer.
Peres, Israeli Labour and its allies, are however still prepared to go for
something along the lines of last year's proposals endorsed by their old
Barak government and the Clinton administration.
This deal, which failed to meet the basic demands of the refugees, Is what
some American analysts call the "parameters" of a future settlement. The
"Barak" or "Clinton" plan gave the Palestinians authority over most of the
West Bank and the Muslim areas of Jerusalem but left most of what Tel Aviv
calls ; "Greater Jerusalem" in Israeli hands and only accepted the return
of a small fraction of the Palestinian refugees.
Now the imperialists fear that the anger on the Arab streets fired by the
scenes of carnage in Afghanistan and Palestine, could easily turn against
the venal oil princes whose thrones ultimately depend on American guns.
There's more talk of Washington "imposing" a settlement on both the
Israelis and Palestinians after a ceasefire.
Well, the Arabs have seen this all before. Promises of a reasonable deal
after the guns fall silent have always in the past evaporated into the
stalemate leaving Israel free to persecute Arabs and carry on stealing
their land.
So Blair will be given the benefit of the doubt this week, but the crisis
in the Middle East will only end when the imperialists match their pious
words with deeds and restore the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs.
*********************
5) British news item
RMT safety war with C2C goes on.
by Steve Lawton
FOR several months now, despite persistent efforts by rail union RMT to get
C2C management to recognise its safety concerns over driver-only trains,
the Shoeburyness-Fenchurch Street mainline has been running a reduced and
increasingly unsafe service for its 30,000 daily commuters.
The situation has been made worse by the company's move to bring in 13
non-union strikebreaking guards on the Essex/London route. RMT argues that
the six weeks' training they have received is inadequate, and the recruits
are, in its view, worried by their lack ofreal experience. This, union
officials argue, creates another safety danger.
The dispute led to a series of strikes and work-to-rule actions reducing
the service, on some occasions, virtually to a standstill. But C2C
attempted to cover up its intransigence over safety by introducing an
emergency timetable during the rest of the time when there was no RMT
action -- a ploy that was calculated to undermine RMT, but which actually
hit commuters.
It created an impression of a permanent RMT action, signalling that it
could become an indefinite norm. But commuters, unlike C2C management, are
tired and worried by the reaction from employers whose workers cannot
predict their time of arrival. There have been jobs lost over this, so such
transparent moves simply anger its regular commuters.
RMT deputy general secretary Vernon Hince said at the end of September
that it was "grossly misleading" to maintain an emergency service. "Its
main purpose appears to be to discredit the union," he said. On October 22
management brought in a fuller timetable with the new guards in place after
the last October 18 strike, the sixth so far.
C2C also "offered" to bring in a further 30 new guards on the day of the
last strike, while slackening the pace of driver only introduction. It is
still unacceptable, but it was, RMT official Derek Marr said. "something we
can get around the table and discuss".
But he warned: "It doesn't tackle our concerns regarding safety and shows
no inclination to address this." He said C2C made this proposal just hours
before their latest strike action. The new guards introduce a further
safety issue, according to RMT, because they would not match the
responsibilities of established and experienced guards.
Despite C2C's claims that they follow the same pattern of training,
disturbingly, Derek Marr said: "They are not going to be guards. They would
not have control of the train doors or have operational duties. These are
duties every other company in the country gives its guards. They would just
be staff who can be taken off at the will of the management."
Last June RMT accused C2C of downgrading guards to "KitKat sellers". In
October, during the emergency timetable, one unnamed guard accused C2C of a
failure to deploy new guards to the point where about 20, at one point,
were left idly watching TV.
This problem was highlighted at the end of last month when the back half
carriages of a new Electrostar train broke away from the front section near
Dagenham.
Luckily, there was a red light in operation, so no collision risk, said
C2C. Tell that to Paddington disaster survivors. Derek Marr pointed out
that the presence of a guard meant that supervision was immediately on hand.
Growing RMT anger, frustration from commuters, and rising support among
railworkers has led to talk of an all-out strike crippling the entire
service.
But for the moment the war of attrition goes on, and management continues
with what RMT calls its "punitive" measures rather than coming up with a
"suitable agreement."
C2C management has been criticised by commuters concerning anything from
late service, cancellations, missed stations, no compensation -- all
crowned by the selective 'customer satisfaction' surveys which particularly
smart with peak-time commuters.
Early morning and late afternoon commuters are genuinely fed up with the
effects of this because they are not included in the surveys.
And still the 50-year-old creeky rolling stock remains partially in
service.
It has been pointed out that Connex is due to bring in the same new trams,
now operating on C2C, early next year. C2C's Electrostars were years
overdue because of endless technical failures. More are promised in
February 2002 for the Fenchurch Street line.
A well attended public meeting was held the day after the October 18
strike at the Towngate Theatre in Basildon. Feeling is running high. RMT
has yet to come forward with another plan of action, but it is clear how
safety is being compromised for train crew and commuters: C2C is the only
company that has been holding out for driver-only trains.
The question is serious too for RMT, since the move to non-union guards
risks breaking the defensive actions RMT have taken to protect its workers
and the public. Practically, and on principal, this is a potentially
dangerous development. But the public and RMT are not backing down on this.
* C2C's cleaning workers are also up in arms, over pay and conditions.
Grievances: Despite promises when taken on, they have had no pay rise for
11 years; inadequate protective clothing when dealing with train waste and
excrement; lack of staff; few water taps and hoses. Senior managers told
workers unofficially: "We wouldn't get out of bed for the money you earn.
*********************
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