WW News Service Digest #350
1) Global actions hit U.S. war, WTO
by WW
2) Turkish police launch attacks on political prisoners
by WW
3) New threats against movement in Colombia
by WW
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (WW)
Date: tiistai 20. marraskuu 2001 03:30
Subject: [WW] Global actions hit U.S. war, WTO
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS MARCH:
GLOBAL ACTIONS HIT U.S. WAR, WTO
By John Catalinotto
>From Nov. 9-11, worldwide mass protests aimed at the World
Trade Organization's meeting in Doha, Qatar, raised demands
both against capitalist globalization and against the U.S.
war of aggression on Afghanistan.
Unlike the meeting in Seattle two years ago, or similar
gatherings in Prague, Quebec City and Genoa, the Qatar
conference was inaccessible to mass action. So anti-
globalization activists decided to hold local protests
against the super-exploitation of the poorest countries and
people on the earth.
With the expanding U.S. war becoming the top issue in many
countries, many of the demonstrations turned into protests
against war or at least included slogans on this issue.
In Italy the center-right regime of Silvio Berlusconi made
the war the main issue by mobilizing 2,000 troops, with
warships and planes, to join the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.
Parliament voted overwhelmingly to support these war moves
on Nov. 7. He also challenged the anti-war forces by calling
a pro-war demonstration.
In response to this challenge from the right wing, the
largest protest on Nov. 10 was in Rome, Italy. There,
according to a report from Italian Communist Refoundation
Party (PRC) activist and videographer Fulvio Grimaldi,
150,000 people came out against the war. This figure was
confirmed by the bourgeois daily La Repubblica.
"The double event on Nov. 10," Grimaldi told WW, "was an
incredible victory for the pacifist, anti-war and anti-
imperialist movement. The government and the Olive Tree
coalition--the social-democratic opposition--have blundered
terribly.
"Berlusconi and his kin hoped to counter the anti-war demo
that had been planned for months with a huge pro-war and pro-
U.S. demo in Piazza del Popolo. Well, our demonstration drew
150,000 marchers, twice as many as we had hoped for, theirs
a bare 30,000.
"It appears, oddly, that Italy has the strongest pro-war
combination of government and loyal opposition in parliament
and at the same time the strongest anti-war movement in the
world. More anti-war protests will accompany the national
metalworkers' strike on Nov. 17."
Grimaldi said the strongest contingent was from the PRC.
There were also large groups of anti-globalist forces,
greens, other left organizations and individuals. He noted
that the Olive Tree leaders, though they voted for Italian
participation in the war, avoided both demonstrations.
A slogan held on posters throughout the crowd was "Not in my
name." Another popular slogan was "Italy is at war--not us."
The bias of the U.S. press was shown in a Nov. 11 New York
Times article on the Rome demonstrations that ran a photo
showing the pro-U.S. action and implied the two events were
nearly equal in size. But even the Roman police estimated
the anti-war demonstration at about three times the size of
the government event, despite the widely advertised
participation in the latter of celebrities like tenor
Luciano Pavarotti and film star Sophia Loren.
AT WTO HEADQUARTERS
The anti-WTO actions also addressed the war, the struggle
against privatization, destruction of the environment,
racism and deteriorating work conditions.
Some 5,000 demonstrators defied an immense police presence
to protest in Geneva, Switzerland, where the main
headquarters of the WTO is found. Speakers condemned
imposing the laws of the market on the world economy at the
cost of the poorest of the earth. The protests also
condemned the newest U.S. war.
Swiss farmer leader Fernand Cuche said, "Governments have
taken refuge in Doha because they are afraid of the people
who elected them."
Police sealed off Geneva's banking district, and extra
security guards were posted by McDonalds outlets, a favorite
target of protesters.
In Paris, according to organizers, another 10,000 people
demonstrated against the WTO and the consequences of
capitalist globalization, with thousands of others in
Marseille, Lille, Lyon and a dozen other French cities.
The largest German demonstration took place in Berlin, with
5,000 people gathering, according to the organizers. In
Frankfurt another 500 anti-globalizers demonstrated.
According to an article by Ruediger Goebel of the newspaper
Junge Welt (Nov. 12), there were demonstrations in 27 German
cities.
The Social Democratic German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
has aggressively sought to put German troops on the front
line of the war in Afghanistan. This policy has aroused
strong opposition among the trade unions, which are usually
the strongest backers of his party.
LEFT CALLS MASSIVE RALLY IN INDIA
On Nov. 9 tens of thousands of peasants and workers filled
the streets of Delhi, India, to participate in an anti-war,
anti-WTO rally. They strongly protested the U.S. war of
aggression on Afghanistan and intervention in Asia. They
also vociferously opposed the anti-peasant policies of the
Indian government and condemned it for surrendering to the
dictates of the WTO.
Addressing the mammoth rally, Gen. Secy. Dipankar
Bhattacharya of the Kisan wing of the Communist Party of
India (ML) said the U.S. is "waging an all-out war on the
weak nations of the world. While in Afghanistan it is using
bombs to kill and terrorize the people of this beleaguered
country, at the Doha ministerial summit of WTO it is trying
to use trade as a weapon of war and terror."
He said while the world had expressed shock and condemnation
over the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, Washington has
misused and insulted global sympathy against terror by
killing and maiming hundreds of innocent Afghan people and
systematically destroying their country. "And now it is
desperately trying to use the current climate of war to
impose a new charter of economic slavery in Doha."
More than 1,500 peasants and unionists protested Nov. 10
before the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, against the
WTO. In Melbourne, Australia, there was a "die-in" at the
Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry.
ACTIONS IN THE U.S.
There were also demonstrations against the WTO in the major
capitals in South America and in cities across the U.S. and
Canada.
Bill Hackwell reports that in Richmond, Calif., on Nov. 10,
over 500 people marched from downtown to the ChevronTexaco
refinery in Point Richmond to protest the routine dumping of
dioxin and other cancer-causing synthetic chemicals on this
predominantly African American community.
It has been years now that the residents of this community
have insisted that there be zero dioxin emissions from the
refinery. ChevronTexaco has all but ignored the community,
along with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), which has dumped
PCB into the ground, contaminating the Richmond water
supply, in a blatant case of disregard and environmental
racism.
The day before hundreds of people marched down Market Street
in San Francisco against the WTO and war to the corporate
headquarters of PG&E. The WTO meetings are designed to allow
corporations like ChevronTexaco and PG&E to beat back and
override any local regulations for environmental protection.
Groups participating in these actions included West County
Toxics Coalition, Greenaction, Art and Revolution, the
Laotian Organizing Project of Asian Pacific Environmental
Network and others.
Dianne Mathiowetz reports that in Atlanta on Nov. 10, an
anti-war march and rally focused on the biased coverage of
the U.S. war on Afghanistan by the major media, particularly
CNN. Called by a group of students at Georgia State
University, who named themselves the 4910 Collective, the
theme of the protest was "CNN--Half the Story, All the
Time."
After marching through part of downtown Atlanta, the crowd
went to the CNN Center where chants such as "CNN lies,
Afghani children die!" filled the air.
Earlier in the week, Atlanta anti-war activists found out
that George Bush was coming the next day to deliver what the
White House called "a major public address on homeland
security."
With details of the visit kept vague by the various security
forces, the Atlanta chapter of the International Action
Center put out an e-mail alert to the Georgia Coalition for
Peace and others calling for a protest on Nov. 8 outside the
Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta.
Despite intense police harassment, some 50-60 people from a
variety of organizations held their ground on a nearby
intersection, making sure that as the presidential caravan
drove by, George Bush, Tom Ridge and the other government
leaders saw their signs and banners. The police arrested
three people as the protest was ending.
People also demonstrated Nov. 10 near the United Nations in
New York where President Bush was telling the world that
they had better actively join the U.S. campaign "against
terrorism."
UPCOMING ACTIONS AGAINST THE WAR
Following the weekend, the next set of anti-war actions
called by International ANSWER against "Bush's war of
terrorism" is Nov. 14, the eve of Ramadan. In New York, the
demonstration is at Union Square at 5 p.m. The park there
has turned into an ad-hoc gathering place for youth and anti-
war forces throughout the city. There has been a running
battle between the youth and the authorities, who are
attempting to remove signs of anti-war feeling from the
park.
Other actions are scheduled for Nov. 14 in San Francisco and
Washington in the U.S., in Madrid, Spain, and in Venice,
Italy.
Perhaps the biggest protest set for the first week of
Ramadan is a general strike in Namibia, scheduled for Nov.
16. The National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) called for
a national stay-away from work that day to protest the U.S.-
led bombing campaign against Afghanistan and privatization
and mismanagement at state-owned enterprises.
The NUNW said that it expected more than 100,000 people to
take part in the mass action, which will focus on marches in
a number of towns.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (WW)
Date: tiistai 20. marraskuu 2001 03:30
Subject: [WW] Turkish police launch attacks on political prisoners
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS TURKEY JOINS PENTAGON CRUSADE:
POLICE LAUNCH ATTACKS ON POLITICL PRISONERS
By Cemile Cakir
Boston
A right-wing Turkish newspaper reported on Nov. 4 that
members of a "terrorist organization" had occupied a small
town near Istanbul--Kucukarmutlu. In fact, political
prisoners who had been released from jail because of bad
health had gone there to continue a hunger strike to the
death.
The next day, the Turkish police attacked the hunger
strikers and their supporters, killing four and wounding
more than 10. On Nov. 5, around 2:30 in the afternoon, 300
police started the operation using CS gas, concussion
grenades, machine guns, tanks and bulldozers. The police
attacked the houses in which the hunger strikers were
staying with bullets and gas bombs.
After the first house was attacked, Ali Haydar Bozkurt
reportedly set himself on fire to protest this operation.
The police shot and wounded him. After the attack police
took out four bodies. They were hunger striker Arzu Guler
and three supporters: Sultan Yildiz, Bulent Durga and Baris
Kas. Their bodies were burned by the police and dragged on
the ground. Yildiz, Durga and Kas were killed by gunshots. A
gas bomb killed Guler. The police also arrested many people.
After this bloody operation, Police Chief Hasan Ozdemir said
the police hadn't killed them; they burned themselves. But
autopsies showed these people had been killed by gunshots.
After this massacre, some organization members sent
delegations to Kucukarmutlu to learn the truth. Delegations
of the Istanbul Office of the Human Rights Association (IHD)
and Contemporary Journalist Union (CHD) reported that police
killed the hunger strikers and supporters without any
warning.
After the police attack, three prisoners--Kemal Ayhan, Nail
Cavus and Mahmut Ozturkmen--burned themselves in the
repressive F-type prisons to protest this bloody operation.
Ayhan and Cavus died.
THE LONGEST HUNGER STRIKE
This longest hunger strike in world history started on Oct.
20 last year to protest the F-type prison system that means
isolation for political prisoners.
Before this system, inmates in Turkey used to live in
dormitories. The dormitory-type prison system provided them
solidarity and the possibility to resist. Resistance was
very high in the prisons. The Turkish government wanted to
break down this resistance and so it adopted an isolation
system created by the United States during the Cold War and
used against communists in Third World countries.
In the year 2000, the Turkish government started to build F-
type prisons. Even though there has been a lot of
resistance, the Turkish government hasn't given up on this
system.
On Oct. 20 of last year, 780 prisoners went on a hunger
strike; 205 vowed to strike to the death. Three leftist
groups carried out this hunger strike: Revolutionary Popular
Liberation Army/Front, Turkish Revolutionary Communist Party
and Turkish Communist Party/Marxist-Leninist.
When many people started to support the hunger strikers, the
Turkish government made a plan to avoid negotiating. They
attacked the 20 prisons using machine guns, gas bombs,
bulldozers and unknown chemical agents. The government named
this bloody massacre "Return to Life." Thirty of the hunger
strikers and two soldiers were killed in this operation.
Many prisoners were seriously injured.
After the attack, all the political prisoners were put in F-
type jails. There they were threatened not only with
isolation but also with torture.
NUMBERS GREW DESPITE MASSACRE
The hunger strikers haven't given up. After that massacre
their number increased to 2,000. They have been continuing
to hunger strike. As a result 41 have died--24 in the
prisons and nine others after their release from jail
because of their weakened physical condition. Eight were
relatives of prisoners who went on hunger strike outside the
prisons in support.
Most of the strikers lost their mental ability and got
Wernica-Korsikoff syndrome. The Turkish government hasn't
cared about the prisoners' deaths. Prime Minister Bulent
Ecevit and Minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Turk said they
would never change their policies. The only thing they did
was release the prisoners whose health conditions were the
worst.
Right now there are six F-type prisons in Turkey and five
more are being built. Only leftist political prisoners have
been put in these prisons.
Since the hunger strike started, oppression has increased,
especially against organizations supporting the strikers.
These include human rights organizations like the Istanbul
Doctors' Union, lawyers' unions, radio stations, newspapers
and magazines that have written about the hunger strike.
Just writing about the hunger strike was forbidden by the
State Security Court. Some 147 people have been arrested and
put in jail for demonstrating in support of the hunger
strike. The police closed six branches of the Human Rights
Association.
This appalling situation is being virtually ignored in the
imperialist-dominated world media, especially since Turkey
agreed to commit troops to the U.S. war against Afghanistan.
The political prisoners in Turkey are resisting the F-
system, not only for themselves, but also for political
prisoners in the U.S. and the entire world.
But the price is so high. It costs their lives.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (WW)
Date: tiistai 20. marraskuu 2001 03:31
Subject: [WW] New threats against movement in Colombia
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 22, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NOW THE EXCUSE IS "TERRORISM":
NEW THREATS AGAINST MOVEMENT IN COLOMBIA
By Andy McInerney
What will be the fate of the U.S. client regimes in Latin
America, given the current Pentagon military offensive in
the Middle East?
Nowhere is that question more sharply posed than in
Colombia. That South American country of 40 million people
has been the scene of a civil war, with two powerful armed
insurgencies and a militant labor movement pitted against a
death squad government armed to the teeth by its U.S.
backers.
Colombian President Andres Pastrana was in New York on Nov.
11 for a meeting with U.S. President George Bush and other
top Washington politicians. His mission: to ensure that the
flow of cash and weapons continues. Colombia has been the
third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world,
after Israel and Egypt.
Pastrana's argument for the press and politicians marked a
change in rhetoric to suit the times. The Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) and the
National Liberation Army (ELN), the main revolutionary
organizations in Colombia, were now painted as "terrorists"
with a "worldwide reach" like Al Qaeda.
"If we are going to combat terrorism, we need all the arms
at our disposal to do it," Pastrana argued on Nov. 9. He was
asking the members of Congress to lift token legal
restrictions on using U.S. military aid in counterinsurgency
campaigns.
The official response was muted. While officials assured
Pastrana that military aid would continue to flow, one State
Department official told the New York Times on Nov. 11, "It
was wishful thinking on the part of those Colombians who
would like us to be more involved."
Another congressional aid described U.S. policy toward
Colombia as on "auto pilot."
Those declarations, however, may reflect a certain wishful
thinking on the part of U.S. politicians--a hope that the
contradictions between oppressed and oppressors around the
world will somehow wane while the world's only superpower
carries out its campaigns of destruction.
CONTRADICTIONS INTENSIFY
The political situation in Colombia has been dominated for
the last three years by talks between Pastrana's government
and the FARC-EP. Both sides committed themselves to
addressing the social causes of the armed struggle that has
been raging, in its present form, since 1964.
As a precondition to the talks, Pastrana agreed to withdraw
government troops from five municipalities, roughly the size
of Switzerland, in central Colombia to insure a safe zone
for the talks. He also committed his government to ending
paramilitary death squad violence--a terror tactic employed
covertly by the government armed forces to try to keep the
civilian population from supporting the insurgencies.
The dialog process has revealed a fundamental contradiction
for the Pastrana government. On the one hand, it is
committed on paper to addressing the causes of the armed
conflict. On the other hand, its base of support--the
Colombian business elite, sectors of the military high
command and landowners, and their U.S. backers--are the ones
who benefit most from the exploitation at the heart of the
conflict.
The Colombian ruling class agreed to the talks with two
goals in mind. First, it needed time to recoup its losses
after a string of heavy political and military defeats.
Second, it clearly hoped to co-opt the FARC-EP leadership
into a series of concessions that could further weaken the
revolutionary movement.
The failure of the second goal has led to growing calls,
both in the Colombian and U.S. ruling classes, to abandon
the dialog process.
Since Sept. 11, these calls have gathered strength.
Although Pastrana on Oct. 7 extended the dialog zone for
three months, the Colombian military has been waging a
series of provocations against the zone. Military planes are
flying over it. Troops have attempted to infiltrate the
zone, disguised as civilians or paramilitaries. The
government has in effect imposed an economic blockade on the
zone.
All these measures have pushed the talks to the point of
collapse. In a Nov. 6 letter, FARC-EP Commander-in-Chief
Manuel Marulanda demanded that the government end its
provocations against the talks.
"In case the government does not accept our proposals,"
Marulanda wrote, "it will be necessary to agree on a date
for the parties to meet in the open to summarize the
situation of the zone, and officially turn over the five
municipalities in the presence of the mayors, councilors,
and representatives of the facilitating countries.
"From that moment, the government can militarily occupy the
encampments."
The end of the zone, of course, would mean the end of the
talks--and the beginning of a new phase of the struggle
between the FARC-EP and the Colombian ruling class.
BEHIND THE PROVOCATIONS
>From the beginning of the talks, the government has fallen
back on provocations and slanders to avoid any substantive
concessions. But the new threats to the process are the most
serious yet, and are a direct result of the changed world
situation after Sept. 11.
Colombian militarists and opponents of the dialog strategy
are emboldened by new threats from the U.S. government--
despite the latter's claim that the policy is on "auto-
pilot."
For example, on Oct. 16, State Department "counter-
terrorism" head Francis Taylor told the Associated Press
that the FARC-EP and the ELN would receive "the same
treatment as any other terrorist group." He said that the
U.S. would fight "terrorism" in Latin America using "all
elements of our national power as well as the elements of
the national power of all the countries in our region."
Within a week, the U.S. ratcheted up the rhetoric. On Oct.
25, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson warned that
leaders of the FARC-EP and ELN would be subject to
extradition to the U.S. And on Nov. 2, it added the FARC-EP
and the ELN to groups whose funds would be investigated and
seized by the U.S. government.
The FARC-EP and the ELN have been designated as "terrorists"
by the U.S. government along with Irish, Palestinian and
other resistance fighters who are struggling against U.S.-
backed client regimes. The list of "terrorist" organizations
once included the African National Congress, which led the
struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
The Colombian death squad group AUC was also placed on the
terrorist list in September. The designation was clearly for
public consumption only, since the death squads receive most
of their financing and intelligence from the U.S.-funded
Colombian army.
The statements of U.S. officials, along with promises of new
aid for Colombia's counterinsurgency war, show that U.S.
intervention in Colombia is far from over--and in fact may
be on the verge of a new escalation.
They coincide with a sharp rise in death squad terror. Death
squads assassinated 12 civilians in El Choco on Nov. 11,
accusing them of being ELN sympathizers.
Ten other peasants were killed in Alejandria on Oct. 20,
accused of being FARC supporters. The same day, an oil
workers' leader was shot in Barrancabermeja for leading
protests.
Close to 100 civilians have been killed in Colombia by
paramilitary death squads since Sept. 11. These death squads
and their government backers are terrorists in the genuine
meaning of the term: forces that use violence with the sole
aim of sowing fear among the civilian population.
A SECOND FRONT
Clearly, the U.S. ruling class would rather not have to risk
an expanded war front in the Western Hemisphere at this
time. It would rather devote all its resources to the effort
to widen its stranglehold over the Middle East.
But the driving factor in the class struggle in Colombia--as
in the rest of Latin America--is not the will or desires of
politicians or generals. It is the strength of the
contending classes and the stakes of the class struggle.
In Colombia, the stakes include state power--a goal that the
Colombian revolutionaries have always upheld. And it is
exactly to prevent a change of power from the oligarchy to
the workers and peasants that the U.S. ruling class is
committing so much to Colombia even as it wages war
elsewhere.
According to the new military doctrine unveiled over the
summer by the Bush administration, the Pentagon is preparing
to "decisively defeat" one enemy while preventing the
victory of another.
However, the Colombian working class continues to take to
the streets against U.S.-backed IMF austerity. Half a
million state workers and farmers staged a one-day general
strike on Nov. 1 to protest the government's economic
measures, depression-level unemployment and violence against
trade unionists.
Protests against the U.S. war in Afghanistan have also led
to clashes between students and police--a sign of the
widespread anti-imperialism among the Colombian masses. One
student was killed at a Nov. 7 protest at the National
University in Bogot�.
The growing struggle in Colombia is not isolated. In
neighboring Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the U.S., the
democratic process led by President Hugo Ch�vez continues to
inspire millions of Venezuela's poor and working people into
political action.
As U.S. capitalism uses the mantle of "fighting terrorism"
to try to stifle opposition to its exploitation both at home
and around the world, it will be crucial for activists to
stand with all those fighting against U.S.-backed
exploitation. The FARC-EP and the ELN are part of the
movement in Colombia that is fighting for national
liberation.
For that "crime," the U.S. government labels them
terrorists. That label belongs instead on those who use
terror to try and stop this genuine people's revolutionary
struggle--which deserves the support of all progressive and
anti-war forces.
