WW News Service Digest #323
1) U.S. deliberately poisoned Iraq's water, leading to massive deaths
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) New U.S. ambassador has death-squad links
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) They're all unsavory
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Venezuela starts land reform, ends ties to U.S. military
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Causes of turmoil in Jamaica, part 2
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) L.A. Mumia Fest: 'Save life of innocent civilian'
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CONFIRM:
U.S. DELIBERATELY POISONED IRAQ'S WATER, LEADING TO MASSIVE DEATHS
By Tony Moran
>From the mouths of Pentagon planners themselves--via an
article in this month's issue of The Progressive--comes
confirmation of what activists have said for years: that the
U.S. government's ongoing war against the Iraqi people
included the intentional destruction of the country's water
system.
The U.S. objective was to hit the population with widespread
outbreaks of debilitating illness and prolong those
illnesses through continuing sanctions.
To many, this is hardly news. The Iraqi government, former
U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and groups like the
International Action Center have included this fact in their
indictment of the U.S.-backed sanctions against Iraq.
Conservative United Nations estimates put the death toll
resulting from these sanctions-and mostly affecting children-
at over 500,000. The number is widely assumed to be much
higher.
Now, however, recently declassified documents of the U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency give the movement a rare,
chilling glimpse into the generals' detailed, cold-blooded
discussion about what chance they felt their strategy had of
successfully spreading disease.
The level of intent shown by the documents' authors, who
wrote them mostly over a three-month period beginning in
January 1991, puts to rest once and for all a falsehood
promoted by the Pentagon's public-relations arm, the
corporate U.S. media: that the blame for the Iraqi people's
suffering lies with Saddam Hussein.
'CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE FOR DISEASE OUTBREAKS'
A U.S.-led coalition bombed Iraq for 42 days beginning on
Jan. 17, 1991. On Feb. 21, 1991, the DIA published a
classified document titled "Disease Outbreaks in Iraq." It
states, "Conditions are favorable for communicable disease
outbreaks, particularly in major urban areas affected by
coalition bombing."
This document lists the "most likely diseases during the
next 60-90 days (descending order): diarrheal diseases
(particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds
and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly
children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly
children); meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly
children); cholera (possible, but less likely)."
Visitors to Iraq in the following months found all these
diseases, including cholera, and more--especially
kwashiorkor and marasmus, diseases stemming from
malnutrition.
Again and again over the last 10 years, the U.S. government
has pushed the UN to renew sanctions against Iraq, citing
this weapons capability or that violation. But the
following, released by the DIA on Jan. 22, 1991, and titled
"Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," makes Washington's
true aims clear:
"Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some
chemicals to purify its water supply, most of which is
heavily mineralized ... . With no domestic sources of both
water treatment replacement parts and some essential
chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United
Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing
to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure
drinking water for much of the population. This could lead
to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."
This document goes into considerable detail. "Iraq
conceivably could truck water from the mountain reservoirs
to urban areas. But the capability to gain significant
quantities is extremely limited.
"The amount of pipe on hand and the lack of pumping stations
would limit laying pipelines to these reservoirs. Moreover,
without chlorine purification, the water still would contain
biological pollutants. Some affluent Iraqis could obtain
their own minimally adequate supply of good quality water
from Northern Iraqi sources. If boiled, the water could be
safely consumed. Poorer Iraqis and industries requiring
larger quantities of pure water would not be able to meet
their needs. ... Precipitation occurs in Iraq during the
winter and spring, but it falls primarily in the northern
mountains. Sporadic rains, sometimes heavy, fall over the
low plains. But Iraq could not rely on rain to provide
adequate pure water."
FOOD AND MEDICINE ALSO CONTAMINATED
U.S. planners knew this would hurt Iraq's food and medicine
production, too. "Food processing, electronic, and,
particularly, pharmaceutical plants require extremely pure
water that is free from biological contaminants."
"Iraq's overall water treatment capability will suffer a
slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt. Although Iraq
is already experiencing a loss of water treatment
capability, it probably will take at least six months (to
June 1991) before the system is fully degraded."
This internal Pentagon discussion took place as U.S.
warplanes were systematically taking out Iraq's water towers
and purification centers. This included eight multipurpose
dams, four of Iraq's seven major water-pumping stations, and
water-purification systems throughout the country.
Why did the United States do all this?
The media said that the United States launched a war against
Iraq because of Iraq's seemingly sudden August 1990 invasion
of Kuwait. President George Bush shook his fist and
proclaimed that naked aggression would not stand. He
encouraged people to fly American flags and wear yellow
ribbons in support of a massive troop buildup in the Persian
Gulf.
To achieve its stated goal of dislodging Iraq's army from
Kuwait--which was accomplished in three months--the U.S.
government starved, bombed and subjected to disease a whole
population. And it continues to do this.
In hindsight, it's obvious that Washington was lying about
opposing naked aggression.
At the time, those intimate with Middle East politics knew
that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was not sudden at all. It was
the result of a long battle between Iraq and other oil-
producing states--which, unlike Iraq, were compliant to the
United States--about raising the price of oil. A little
investigation revealed that Kuwait and the United States
were cooperating at the highest levels to both drive down
oil prices and destabilize Iraq; this included a campaign
from Kuwaiti territory to steal Iraq's oil, with the use of
slant-drilling technology.
Neither all these facts, nor the long-range effects of U.S.
actions against Iraq, were known then. Nevertheless, in the
face of a massive propaganda campaign for the war, thousands
mobilized against it.
It was enough to know that an imperialist country was
launching a war against an oppressed country--and that there
was no way this could help the Iraqi people or workers here.
The subsequent rampant illnesses suffered by Gulf War
veterans, the destruction of Iraq's environment by depleted-
uranium weaponry, and the massive layoffs suffered in the
United States alone prove this true a thousand times over.
It may seem obvious that the motivation for U.S.
intervention in Iraq was to protect the profits of the oil
companies. But when the ruling class has complete control of
the media, the truth is buried. The movement needs to oppose
the current war frenzy long before the U.S. war machine
allows the truth to become declassified.
-
SENATE SNEAKS IN NEGROPONTE:
NEW U..S. AMBASSADOR HAS DEATH-SQUAD LINKS
By Heather Cottin
While most people here were focused on the aftermath of the
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S.
Senate on Sept. 14 approved the nomination of John
Negroponte to the post of ambassador to the United Nations.
Under cover of the rightward impetus dominating national
politics, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day
before had voted 14-to-3 to approve Negroponte. Senators
were "anxious to fill the post of United States ambassador
to the United Nations," according to Reuters. But they were
aware, too, that this nomination was more likely to slip
through if it was done quietly, during a time when few were
paying attention.
Negroponte's career indicates the strong connection between
the U.S. imperialist business, publishing, military and
intelligence "communities." The White House, announcing his
nomination, boasted that Negroponte "served in a wide
variety of Foreign Service posts including ambassador to
Honduras from 1981-1985, ambassador to Mexico from 1989-1993
and ambassador to the Philippines from 1993-1996.
"He held the post of deputy assistant secretary of state
with the rank of ambassador for oceans and fisheries affairs
from 1976-1979 and was then appointed deputy assistant
secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs in
1980. From 1985-1987, he was assistant secretary of state
for oceans and international environment and scientific
affairs. Reagan named him deputy assistant to the president
for national security affairs, a post he held until 1989."
But it was Negroponte's role in Central America, in the
creation of death squads in Honduras, and as a conspirator
in the Iran-Contra scandal that alerted activists to protest
his nomination as ambassador to the United Nations.
NEGROPONTE AND HONDURAN DEATH SQUADS
In April 2001 the Sydney Morning Herald reported, "President
George W. Bush's nominee for the post of U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations concealed from Congress human rights
abuses in Central America carried out by death squads
trained and armed by the CIA."
The New York Times credited Negroponte with "carrying out
the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush
the Sandinista government in Nicaragua" during his tenure as
U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. He oversaw the
growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4
million a year.
In early 1984, two U.S. mercenaries, Thomas Posey and Dana
Parker, contacted Negroponte, stating they wanted to supply
arms to the Contra army after the U.S. Congress had banned
governmental aid. Documents show that Negroponte connected
the two with a contact in the Honduran military. The
operation was exposed nine months later, at which point the
Reagan administration denied any U.S. government
involvement, despite Negroponte's contact earlier that year.
Other documents uncovered a scheme of Negroponte and then-
Vice President George Bush to funnel Contra aid money
through the Honduran government.
In addition to his work with the Nicaraguan Contra army,
Negroponte helped conceal from Congress the murder,
kidnapping and torture abuses of a CIA-equipped and -trained
Honduran military unit, Battalion 316. No mention of these
human rights violations ever appeared in State Department
human rights reports for Honduras.
After making a comprehensive study in June 1995 of
Negroponte's tenure in Honduras, the Baltimore Sun wrote:
"The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock
and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often
were kept naked and, when no longer useful, were killed and
buried in unmarked graves. Newly declassified documents and
other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of
numerous crimes, including murder and torture, committed by
Battalion 316, yet continued to collaborate closely with its
leaders."
The Sun reported that Efrain Diaz Arrivillaga, then a
delegate in the Honduran Congress and a voice of dissent,
told the newspaper that he complained to Negroponte on
numerous occasions about the Honduran military's human
rights abuses. Rick Chidester, a junior embassy official
under Negroponte, reported to the Sun that he was forced to
omit an exhaustive section on human rights violations from
his 1982 State Department report.
Sister Laetitia Bordes went on a fact-finding delegation to
Honduras in May 1982 to investigate the whereabouts of 32
Salvadoran nuns and women of faith who fled to Honduras in
1981 after Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination.
Negroponte claimed the embassy knew nothing.
But in 1996 Negroponte's predecessor, Jack Binns, reported
that the women had been captured, tortured and then crammed
into helicopters, from which they were tossed to their
deaths.
HE CONVENIENTLY 'FORGOT'
According to the Los Angeles Times, shortly after
Negroponte's nomination was decided, the U.S. government
revoked the visa of Gen. Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, who was
Honduras's deputy ambassador to the UN.
General Discua was the commander of Battalion 316 during
Negroponte's tenure as ambassador. He has publicly claimed
to have information linking Negroponte with the battalion's
activities. His testimony would be invaluable in
illuminating Negroponte's collusion with Honduran opponents
on Capitol Hill. In 1994, the Honduran Human Rights
Commission charged Negroponte personally with several human
rights abuses.
All this took place while John Negroponte was ambassador. He
claimed in a recent hearing in the Senate to have forgotten
what happened during his watch in Honduras. Reuters reported
on Sept. 15, "Mr. Negroponte, pressed on various human
rights cases in Honduras and on what he discussed with the
contras, told the Senate committee he could not remember."
The Washington Post on Sept. 15 noted during the nomination
hearings, "Committee members questioned whether Negroponte
played down or knowingly failed to report government abuses,
possibly affecting congressional support for the Reagan
administration's plan to build up the military in
neighboring Central American nations."
They apparently had no objections when Negroponte replied by
asserting he served "honorably and conscientiously in a
manner fully consistent with and faithful to applicable laws
and policies."
Reuters had written the day before, "Senators said the
United States needed an ambassador in New York as soon as
possible to mobilize international support for President
Bush's campaign against terrorism." No one apparently saw
the duplicity or irony of appointing as ambassador to the
United Nations a man who was officially responsible for a
nefarious episode of U.S. state terrorism.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
THEY'RE ALL UNSAVORY
In 1995, because of popular disgust with massacres carried
out by U.S. "assets" in Central America, Congress put some
legal restraints on the use of thugs and murderers by the
intelligence community. Now the U.S. government wants to
again openly embrace a foreign policy of dirty tricks.
Since Sept. 11, the knives have been unsheathed. Vice
President Dick Cheney said: "You have to have on payroll
some very unsavory characters. This is a mean, nasty,
dangerous, dirty business. We have to operate in that
arena."
John Negroponte is just the first of the unsavory characters
the Bush administration is officially putting on payroll.
Pressure to openly use criminal elements in the CIA has been
building for some time. In 1998 at the Hoover Institute, a
conservative think tank connected to Stanford University,
former National Intelligence Council Chair John C. Gannon
said, "I think when our nation's interests are involved we
also need to take risks and deal with unsavory people."
Last Oct. 19, the Christian Science Monitor reported that in
recent years the CIA had been unhappy that it was not free
to hire whomever it wished. "Analysts complain that efforts
have been hampered by a 1995 CIA directive that prevents
agents from using informants who have been involved in human
rights abuses--a condition that could apply to almost any
informant within a terrorist ring."
The Monitor continued, quoting Mike Wermuth, a terrorism
expert at the Rand Corp. in Washington, "We've tended to
hamstring ourselves ... by preventing [the use of] unsavory
characters as insiders to infiltrate foreign terrorism
organizations."
Even with restraining legislation in place, U.S. officials
have operated in cahoots with criminals in the Balkans,
Colombia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. They've been dealing
with gangs conducting assassination, rape, drug trafficking
and sex slavery for a long time.
If Cheney has his way, Negroponte won't have to hide his
work with the thieves, murderers, drug smugglers, rapists
and arsonists with whom he worked in the past.
--Heather Cottin
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 25. syyskuu 2001 14:26
Subject: [WW] Venezuela starts land reform, ends ties to U.S. military
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
VENEZUELA STARTS LAND REFORM, ENDS TIES TO U.S. MILITARY
By Andy McInerney
On Sept. 4, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced a new
land law to favor poor farmers. According to a 1998
government census, 60 percent of Venezuela's arable land is
owned by 1 percent of the population. Close to 10 million
out of 11.5 million hectares of land distributed in a 1961
land reform had "somehow," in the words of a Sept. 4
Associated Press dispatch, "ended up in the hands of large
plantation owners."
According to the new land law, the government would
immediately expropriate idle land from big absentee
landowners.
Chavez also announced plans to pull government funds from
private banks found to engage in currency speculation. "I
don't want to do that because more than one bank would
disappear. In large part they live off this blood," the
Venezuelan president declared.
Both of these moves strike deep at the heart of the
traditional economic elite. They are signs that the process
unleashed by Chavez's election is beginning to spill over
the borders of a political revolution into a genuine process
of social transformation. Private property is standing in
the way of that transformation.
The base of Chavez's support is the 80 percent of
Venezuelans living in poverty. Millions of Venezuelans have
never seen benefits from the oil wealth that has made the
country's tiny economic elite fabulously rich.
MASS ORGANIZATIONS SET UP TO DEFEND REVOLUTION
In late spring, the Chavez government announced plans for
the creation of "Bolivarian circles," popular mass
organizations set up to defend the revolution. They take
their name from Sim�n Bol�var, the great leader of Latin
America's wars for independence from Spain and a revered
symbol of Latin American unity and anti-imperialism.
The move toward creating the Bolivarian circles coincided
with what Guillermo Garcia Ponce, a leader of the Bolivarian
Revolutionary Movement, called in June "a thrust toward the
economy, toward social solutions."
Key to the success of that process, though, is the
mobilization of the Venezuelan workers and peasants,
organized and unorganized, employed and unemployed. The
Bolivarian circles are a move in that direction, although on
a popular, not a class basis.
Another move of vital importance to the success of the
Venezuelan revolutionary process is taking place in the
trade unions. The traditional Venezuelan Confederation of
Workers (CTV) is deeply tied to the old and corrupt
political elite, especially the Democratic Action (AD)
party.
A December popular referendum mandated new elections on Oct.
25 for the union federation. A new movement, the Bolivarian
Workers Front, is waging a strong challenge for the
leadership. Its candidate, Aristobulo Isturiz, is leading in
preliminary polls.
Isturiz won the mayoral election in Caracas in 1993
representing the Causa R party, a union-based communist
party. He is now a leader in the Homeland for All (PPT)
party, one of the leftist parties in Chavez's coalition.
"We urgently need a powerful political and revolutionary
labor movement that is unified in the street defending the
revolution--pushing it forward, controlling it, watching
over it," Chavez told a union rally on Sept. 2.
U.S. MILITARY MISSION SENT PACKING
Chavez was elected in December 1998 with mass popular
support, promising a "peaceful revolution" against the U.S.-
backed Venezuelan elite that had run the country for
decades. Since his election, he has steered the country out
of the orbit of the U.S. towards an anti-imperialist foreign
policy.
Ties with revolutionary Cuba have grown substantially.
Venezuela is now Cuba's largest source of foreign oil,
amounting to 30 percent of Cuba's supply. Chavez and Cuban
President Fidel Castro frequently make joint appearances and
announcements.
In 2000, Chavez became the first head of state to visit Iraq
since the U.S.-led Gulf War. The visit was seen as a
challenge to the U.S. economic sanctions that have cost the
lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
And the Venezuelan president has challenged U.S. military
designs in Latin America. Early in his tenure he refused
U.S. military flights over Venezuelan territory aimed at
neighboring Colombia.
In August, the Venezuelan government evicted a U.S. military
mission from a Venezuelan base in the capital city of
Caracas.
That move was followed by a Sept. 5 announcement by
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Vicente Rangel that Venezuela
would not renew a 1951 military cooperation agreement
between the U.S. and Venezuela.
The Venezuelan leaders must certainly know that U.S.
military missions have been the vehicle for counter-
revolutionary activity in countries like Chile and Indonesia
in the past. They have helped organize fascistic military
coups that slaughtered the progressive forces. In Venezuela,
several coup attempts had already been reported in recent
months.
Military leaders in both the U.S. and Venezuela sought to
minimize the impact of the recent moves. But the signal was
clear, and elicited howls from the remnants of the rabidly
pro-Washington former Venezuelan ruling elite. That elite
still exercise tremendous influence over Venezuela's largest
press.
The Chavez government's foreign policy initiatives are a
reflection of the deepening revolutionary process underway
within Venezuela, an industrialized country of 23 million
people and a major world oil exporter.
As the process underway in Venezuela deepens--as it
consolidates the support of the working classes and as it
encroaches on the property of the U.S.-backed elite--so
grows the prospect for an open struggle between Chavez's
"Bolivarian revolution" and the old ruling classes.
Venezuelan workers can take heart in the fact that their
revolution has ignited mass support across Latin America.
Their movement is politically nourished by the neighboring
Colombian revolutionary movement, which serves as a
continent-wide example for struggle. It is part of a new
wave of resistance that is sweeping every corner of Latin
America.
How will this resistance be affected by the bellicose
climate in Washington since the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon?
"Today's newspaper headlines are announcing the first war of
the 21st Century," Chavez said at a Sept. 14 speech in
Merida, a western state in Venezuela. "Let's hope, by God,
not. Let's ask that any measures taken not provoke a war
between brother peoples."
Chavez's plea for a "mature" and "objective" response was a
rebuke to U.S. President George Bush's call for governments
around the world to line up behind the Pentagon's war moves.
U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell warned that
support for U.S. war moves--or lack thereof--would be a "new
way of measuring the relationship" between governments and
U.S. imperialism.
Bush and Powell will certainly try to use the current war
crisis to isolate Chavez, the process he is leading, as well
as all the revolutionary struggles in Latin America. It will
be up to the progressive and anti-war movement in the United
States, despite tremendous challenges, to break that
isolation in the coming period.
- 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
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[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: tiistai 25. syyskuu 2001 14:27
Subject: [WW] Causes of turmoil in Jamaica, part 2
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CAUSES OF TURMOIL IN JAMAICA, PART 2
By Pat Chin
[Part I covered the recent upsurge of violence in Jamaica
within the context of capitalist globalization.]
The subjugation of Jamaica started when Christopher Columbus
landed and took possession of the island for the Spanish
crown on May 5, 1494. It was just two years after the
rapacious explorer had sailed west from Europe in search of
shorter trade routes to Asia in voyages that would lay the
foundation for the trans-Atlantic slave trade in human cargo
stolen from Africa.
When Columbus arrived, the Caribbean island was home to the
Arawaks, who belonged to the linguistic stock of North
American indigenous peoples. They called their home
"Xaymaca"--land of wood and springs.
Jamaica was formally declared a colony in 1509 and partially
settled by the Spanish adventurer Juan de Esquival. Only
sparsely populated by settlers, it remained Spain's
possession for the next 161 years. Since no gold was found,
the island was used as a way station for Spanish galleons
sailing between the Western Hemisphere and Spain.
European pirates and buccaneers fought each other in bloody
battles on the Caribbean Sea. Centrally located, Jamaica was
the epicenter of their clashes for supremacy, and competing
forces murdered numerous Arawaks. In addition to this,
deaths from overwork and European-borne diseases soon caused
the extermination of the Arawaks.
BITTER CANE AND SLAVERY
Finding no gold in Jamaica and only small deposits elsewhere
in the so-called West Indies, the colonialists turned to
sugar. The sugarcane plant, introduced into the region by
Columbus in 1493, became the new potential source of
Caribbean wealth. But the Arawaks had been wiped out. Spain
had a relatively small population and couldn't allow the
migration of more settlers to the colony. As a result,
African slaves were rounded up and shipped across the
Atlantic to labor in the fields.
Admirals Penn and Venable seized Jamaica for the British
crown in 1655. The small bands of slaves left behind by the
Spanish--called Maroons--fled to the mountains where they
set up free communities that offered refuge to runaway
slaves, while fighting off successive attempts by the
British to recapture them.
English settlers, who arrived in droves, established a
thriving sugar industry. Britain also populated the island
with white indentured servants and prisoners captured in
battles for Irish and Scottish freedom from England's
colonial domination.
Based on slave labor, the new sugar industry boomed and
Jamaica was soon regarded as one of the finest jewels in the
British crown. But this wasn't primarily due to the huge
profits being made from sugar; Jamaica had also become the
biggest center for the re-exporting of slaves to other
British and Spanish colonies.
"Over a million slaves were brought to Jamaica during the
period of slavery, of which 200,000 were re-exported," wrote
author Horace Campbell in "Rasta and Resistance From Marcus
Garvey to Walter Rodney."
"The very fierce slaves remained in Jamaica, and by the end
of the slave period, there were only 323,000 slaves who
survived.
"As a center for re-export, Jamaica was the prize of the
British possessions," continued Campbell, "and the planters
in Jamaica were the darlings of the British aristocracy in
the 18th century, when the wealth of the slaves supported
Earldoms and safe parliamentary seats. The organization of
the plantations, which supported the planter class,
encompassed the highest form of capitalist organization at
that time ... where the instrument of labor, the slave, was
at the same time a commodity which could be replaced after
being worked to death."
The riches amassed from piracy on the high seas and the
European plunder of Central America provided the financial
basis for the establishment of sugar, tobacco and cotton
plantations. In turn, the experience and wealth derived from
the plantation system, coupled with the massive spoils of
the slave trade, laid the foundation for the European
industrial revolution and gave rise to the world's first
stock market in England. And for nearly 200 years Jamaica
played its part as colonial subject.
HISTORY OF SLAVE REVOLTS
It is well documented that the most rebellious Black
captives who passed through Jamaica's bustling re-
exportation center were left on the island, the majority
being from Africa's Gold Coast. The country's history of
slave revolts is consistent with this fact, the pre-
emancipation period of British colonial occupation being
marked by successive uprisings.
The populations of the small Maroon communities of runaway
slaves, carved out after the British drove the Spanish from
the island in 1655, increased sharply after major slave
uprisings broke out against the new colonial regime in 1673
and 1685.
"The survival of the Maroon communities depended on the mode
of social organization of the villages," explains Campbell.
"In order for the Maroons to survive they had to organize a
system of production and exchange, superior to the
plantation levels of cooperation, reminiscent of African
communalism where they divided the tasks as they hunted,
fished, and gathered wild fruits. Their scouts carried out
intelligence activities on the white plantations to learn
the military movements of the white people's army; they
never confronted the whites on the plains and blew the Abeng
horn to forewarn their villages of the impending attacks."
One of the most famous Maroon leaders was Nanny, a fierce
Ashanti warrior woman, whose army of former slaves
successfully used guerrilla tactics against the British on
countless occasions to defend their territory in the eastern
mountains.
The major Maroon War of 1729 to1739 was fought under the
leadership of Cudjoe, who was also descended from the
Ashantis of Africa's Gold Coast. His guerrilla army fought
the British to a standstill, and in the end they begged him
to sign a treaty recognizing all Maroons as free people. The
victors also won autonomy over their territories on both
sides of the island, but in return for a promise of no
taxation, Cudjoe agreed to refuse asylum to new runaway
slaves.
Numerous slave revolts erupted after Cudjoe decimated the
British Army, including another Maroon War in 1795, decades
after the colonialists instigated Nanny's death. Sam Sharpe,
a slave and Baptist deacon, led the biggest. Campbell
describes the brilliant tactics that Sharpe executed in the
Christmas Rebellion of 1831:
"Local commanders, who had previously taken on the guise of
deacons, proceeded to march from plantation to plantation
freeing the slaves and burning to the ground the homes of
the most vicious planters. The drum, conch shells and the
blowing of horns called other slaves to the ranks, so that
before the night was out, 20,000 supposedly docile slaves
were precipitating the death-blow to slavery in the British
domains.
"As usual, capital was called upon to defend its own
interests," Campbell continues, "and one of the most feared
overseers, Grignon, assumed the rank of Colonel to command
the Western Interior Regiment to defend the estates. But the
determination of those who stood up for their rights was
such that Grignon soon had to retreat to the sea, along with
those whites who had already been put out to sea in the
Montego Bay Harbor. This retreat left the countryside to the
slaves, who pushed from Montego Bay to Savanna la Mar,
freeing slaves and blowing the horns of freedom."
Two weeks later--only after they were tricked into thinking
that slavery had been abolished with an amnesty--did the
slaves lay down their arms. Thousands were slaughtered and
many others brutally whipped in the bloody reprisals that
followed.
Facing death, Sharpe was pressed to express regret for his
actions. "I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live
in slavery," he responded defiantly. (Quoted in Campbell)
Although Jamaica's most powerful slave rebellion was crushed
through trickery, the struggle for emancipation elevated the
issue of abolition, and the British Parliament was forced to
formally end chattel slavery in its colonial possessions
effective Aug. 1, 1834.
[Next: Emancipation's aftermath--
The emergence of the trade union movement, the struggle for
independence and other forms of resistance.]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
L.A. MUMIA FEST SAYS: "SAVE LIFE OF INNOCENT CIVILIAN"
By Workers World Los Angeles bureau
Despite increasing threats by the Bush administration for
war and repression, organizers of an activity supporting
imprisoned Black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal went ahead with
their event here on Sept. 15. A multiracial crowd of 1,000
people in Leimert Park listened intently to top-notch music,
spoken word, hip hop, and anti-war and anti-racist politics.
After the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington, D.C., and New
York, almost all political events in this city were
canceled. But the "Mumia Fest," called by the Los Angeles
Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, was not.
It proved to be an important venue for the progressive, anti-
racist community to come together in a time of crisis.
John Parker, a member of the International Action Center and
co-chair of the event, explained: "Many told us we should be
home out of respect for the victims. Well, we should honor
those innocent victims. That's why we strive to save Mumia's
life, because he also is an innocent civilian whom the Bush
administration is trying to make a casualty in their war
against the poor here in the U.S. They are not stopping
their efforts to kill Mumia, so neither should we stop our
efforts to free him."
The music and talks reflected Mumia's example of unity and
justice. Speaking of the need for unity of working people to
combat homophobia and violence against lesbian, gay, bi and
trans people, Frank Sarjanovic, leading organizer of the
Stonewall Initiative for Equal Rights, said, "Mumia is a
symbol of unity. He unites all struggles, including those of
the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. After
Mathew Sheppard was beaten to death in 1998, it was Mumia's
words of compassion from death row that reached out to the
gay community. This is why the government fears him and is
trying to kill him, because he brings together all issues--
from Iraq, Cuba, Plan Colombia, the bombing of Vieques,
racism and homophobia to corporate globalization. Mumia's
struggle is our struggle."
This event reinvigorated the spirit of resistance, struggle
and unity. Everyone left committed to stand with Mumia and
all people facing repression. Witness to this was the
enthusiastic response to an anti-war, anti-racist
demonstration announced by the International Action Center
calling on all working people to oppose any U.S. threats to
any workers here or abroad.
