WW News Service Digest #357
1) Palestinian defeats Mass. police frame-up
by WW
2) U.S. trade pact chokes Latin American economies
by WW
3) Keeping 'allies' at arm's length
by WW
4) Moulinex workers' militant action wins severance pay
by WW
5) Letters to WW
by WW
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 6, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AFTER VIGOROUS DEFENSE CAMPAIGN:
PALESTINIAN DEFEATS POLICE FRAME-UP
By Steven Gillis
Boston
Supporters of Palestinian activist Amer Jubran are
celebrating. An attempted frame-up of Jubran by Brookline,
Mass., police and the Boston Israeli consulate has collapsed
in the face of a determined, vocal defense of Palestinian
free speech rights.
On June 10, months before the new repressive initiatives of
the Bush administration, Jubran was arrested, shackled hand
to foot, held for 36 hours incommunicado, interrogated and
falsely charged with felony assault and battery with a
dangerous weapon--his shod foot. He faced 10 years in
Massachusetts' maximum-security prison and deportation to
Israel, which practices assassination and torture of
activist Palestinians.
Jubran's real crime was that he dared to lead a spirited but
peaceful protest June 10 at a street festival celebrating
the founding of the Israeli state. To police authorities--
who spent two hours filming the 100 or so Palestinians and
their supporters--the chants of "Long live the Intifada" and
"Shame, shame, USA, funding Israel this way" were an
intolerable threat to the Israeli Festival Committee's
attempt to present a monolithic, pro-Israel view. Utilizing
known pro-Zionist provocateurs to finger Jubran, police
moved in under orders to break up the Palestinians' picket.
Even as the police wagon was pulling away, the Palestine
Right of Return Coalition (Al-Awda) of Massachusetts,
organizer of the protest, was joined by the International
Action Center, the Portuguese American Relief for Palestine,
SUSTAIN, and the Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights in
launching the Committee to Defend Amer Jubran and
Palestinian Free Speech Rights.
The committee started an international email and fax
campaign to flood the office of the Norfolk County District
Attorney with demands to drop the racist frame-up charges.
Messages came in from Australia, Austria, Canada, Egypt,
France, Greece, India, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland,
Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and 33 U.S.
states.
The Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union and the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee worked to expose this
overt attack on Palestinian free speech rights, which was a
precursor to the thousands of detentions, interrogations and
false arrests of Arab and Muslim immigrants under the
jurisdiction of the "USA Patriot Act" passed after Sept. 11.
Well-known figures--Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner,
former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, author Howard
Zinn and Greek Maj. Gen. Kostas Konstantinidis--called on
the DA to dismiss the charges. Arthur Buonamia, district
chairperson of the Democratic Party election committee in
Miami, wrote: "Having witnessed firsthand a fascist rent-a-
mob deny us the right to count the votes in Miami on Nov.
22, 2000, I have since become concerned with the denial of
basic democratic rights throughout this country. Amer Jubran
has the right to peacefully demonstrate and I will defend
that right."
CAMPAIGN IN THE STREETS
For months, the Amer Jubran Defense Committee met weekly,
producing a mass campaign in the streets from Brookline and
Boston to Washington, D.C. After a Brookline cop threatened
a shackled Jubran with "I'll teach you a lesson," supporters
picketed in front of the courthouse for each of nine court
appearances, chanting "Free, free Palestine!" Supporters
distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets, ran a defense
committee web page (www.iacboston.org/amerjubran), and
forced the issue into the local media spotlight.
Amer Jubran's outspoken leadership of Al-Awda, especially in
the burgeoning anti-war movement following Sept. 11, became
an inspiration to young student activists. While facing
felony charges, Jubran addressed 20,000 anti-war marchers in
Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza on Sept. 29, and led 500
demonstrators in Boston on Oct. 27 in a militant three-mile
"March against the Warmakers" targeting the Boston FBI
office, the Israeli consulate, and the Northeastern
University ROTC. He has spoken at dozens of campus and
community rallies in recent months about how to strengthen
the Palestinian solidarity struggle for freedom and self-
determination.
Meanwhile, the government's case against him was falling
apart. Through the pro-bono efforts of attorney Barry Wilson
and the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, many elements
of the government's conspiracy against Jubran were fatally
exposed. The Brookline police were shown to be in the pay of
the Israeli Festival Committee on the day of Jubran's
arrest, receiving more than $10,000. Evidence also showed
that local Brookline cops had been in illegal and
unconstitutional consultation with representatives of the
Israeli government in Boston about how to handle the
Palestinian protest.
The district attorney withheld eyewitness exculpatory
evidence from Jubran's defense team. Clumsy editing of
police video evidence left a Watergate-style gap in the
tape. And after undercover police agents illegally filmed
Jubran and his witnesses in open court on July 16, Boston
Phoenix investigative journalists helped spotlight the real
motives behind Jubran's arrest: a taped dispatch from police
headquarters had ordered cops on the scene to break up the
peaceful Palestinian protest that day.
Amid the complete collapse of this conspiracy to silence
Palestinian voices, Brookline authorities on Nov. 21 offered
Jubran a complete dismissal of the charges against him, with
no admission by Jubran whatsoever.
Afterwards, Jubran told supporters filling the courthouse
steps that, "My case is only one among thousands of
Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and African
immigrants who are being wrongly arrested, detained and
interrogated in what the U.S. government now calls its 'war
on terrorism.' We must use all our energy and experience
gained from this case to stop this extreme racial profiling
and violations of civil and human rights, made possible by
the U.S.'s continued support of the Israeli war against the
Palestinian people, and the indiscriminate bombing of the
people of Afghanistan."
He urged those present to spread the word about an upcoming
Dec. 1 rally and march in Boston to defend civil rights and
civil liberties. The Boston chapter of ANSWER (Act Now to
Stop War & End Racism) is calling on people to rally at 1:00
p.m. in Copley Square to demand freedom for the 1,200
federal detainees locked up for months by the U.S. Office of
Homeland Security. The rally will also highlight the defense
of two Somali brothers arrested in Boston for sending money
to relatives back home, and support the Hartford 18 peace
activists brutalized and arrested by Connecticut police in
October.
Protesters will march to Boston Police Headquarters, where
they will demand that police obey local laws prohibiting
racial profiling and refuse to cooperate with the Bush
administration's new roundup and interrogation of 5,000
young Arab immigrants. For further information, see
www.iacboston.org/ANSWER on the Web.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 6, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
REPORT FROM HAVANA CONFERENCE:
U.S. TRADE PACT CHOKES LATIN AMERICAN ECONOMIES
By Gloria La Riva
Havana
Osvaldo de Leon, Indigenous leader from Panama, was one of
almost 800 delegates who met in Havana, Cuba, on Nov. 13-16
for the Hemispheric Conference Against the Free Trade Area
of the Americas. The delegates discussed the effects of
capitalist globalization on the region's peoples, their
sovereignty and environment.
"With FTAA and Plan Colombia, our peoples will be more
discriminated against, more exploited, our rivers
contaminated, our forests devastated," predicted de Leon.
And, he added, "Biogenetic pirates are appropriating our
traditional medicine for the benefit of the big
transnational pharmaceuticals."
The participants, representing more than 230 labor,
community, Indigenous and social organizations from 34
countries of the hemisphere, met to analyze the FTAA pact
now being negotiated. As importantly, they discussed action
plans to fight and defeat it.
FTAA is virtually unknown to the U.S. public, but it is the
linchpin of U.S. corporations' strategy to more fully
dominate Latin American and Caribbean economies through a
sweeping "free trade" agreement.
The term "free trade" belies another reality. Like its
principal precursor, the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), it gives U.S. agribusiness and industry the ability
to overwhelm the national economy of any country that is
less developed and unable to withstand the onslaught of
monopoly capital. In the case of Latin America, that is
every country.
One delegate characterized FTAA as the new Monroe Doctrine,
because U.S. corporations can effectively annex any economy
in the region through the sheer power of monopoly control
and productive advantage.
Like other trade-liberalization accords, the FTAA means the
elimination of tariffs and barriers to foreign investment,
including worker-rights laws and environmental protections
that are seen as obstacles to the maximization of profits.
It is an "equalizing" of terms between potential trading
partners, a formal equality between huge U.S. conglomerates
and the economies of less developed countries. Or, as Cuban
economist Osvaldo Martinez Martinez described it in his
opening talk, "the integration between a shark and
sardines."
Opposition to the FTAA broke onto the world stage last April
when tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Quebec,
where the FTAA summit was taking place. Cuba, the only
country excluded from the U.S.-led conference, is helping
lead the struggle against this latest annexationist scheme
of U.S. imperialism.
Each conference session opened with analyses of legal and
economic aspects of FTAA and their effect on social and
community issues.
Martinez, director of the Research Center on the World
Economy in Cuba, presented a panorama of the unfolding world
economic crisis in the main opening talk.
Why the hurry by the U.S. to get FTAA implemented, Martinez
asked. "Their haste is explained by the great destructive
potential of the economic crisis that is coming upon them.
They want Latin America to be a shock absorber for them, a
form of certain trade relief.
"Thanks to the preferential circulation of U.S.
transnational capital," he continued, "they can take
advantage of a labor force that is many times cheaper than
in the U.S. and exceptional conditions of investment that
are tolerated by submissive governments."
Martinez reviewed how the U.S. economic crisis came in the
wake of economic collapses from Japan to Mexico, South
Korea, Russia and Argentina in the 1990s.
"Now the situation is more grave than all the previous ones.
The global recession has arrived and never in the post-war
situation has there been such a recession of this magnitude
in the three great centers of economic power.
"The crisis did not break out with the terrorist acts of
Sept. 11. It already existed by that date after a long
incubation in the belly of globalized capitalism ....
"In the current crisis, besides the drop in the NASDAQ and
other losses on the stock market, we need to take into
account the real economic indicators ... and show the
gravity of what has happened.
"World trade grew 12 percent in 2000. This year it is
expected to rise by 2 percent at best and it could be zero
percent. The sale of computers will fall this year for the
first time in their history of almost three decades.
"Direct foreign investments in the year 2000 reached an all-
time high of $1.3 trillion. This year it is estimated they
will reach only half that, which would be the greatest drop
in 30 years."
He continued, "Lowering the interest rate in the U.S. 10
times in the year 2001, three times after Sept. 11, has not
been able to either stop the recession or bring the U.S.
economy out of recession. The interest rate is now virtually
on the floor and there seems to be no margin for further
lowering."
He urged that it is imperative to unite all progressive
forces in Latin America and the Caribbean to defeat the FTAA
while there is still time.
Speaker after speaker denounced the destruction already
wrought on their economies by globalization policies, and
shared the struggles they are engaged in to defend their
sovereignty.
Pacha Teran, 18, an Indigenous Quicha woman from Ecuador,
spoke of the level of poverty among children in that
country. She said that in 1995 the percentage of children
living in poverty was 40 percent; four years later it had
grown to 63 percent. In 1999, 78 percent of the children in
the countryside lived in poverty.
Leo Aldrich, a youth activist from Puerto Rico, talked of
the military aspects of free trade, shown by the U.S.
bombing exercises on Vieques island. "FTAA is not just an
economic question, it is also military and sociopolitical.
... When they put the absurd question to our people of
whether they wanted the bombing to continue, the
overwhelming majority, 68 percent, said no. The following
day, the U.S. carried out the heaviest bombing since 1941,
the year the U.S. began its war exercises on Vieques."
But he assured the crowd that resistance continues on the
island. "The role of youth has been vital in the struggle to
liberate Vieques. We youth are not passing through life
without a purpose!"
MEXICAN AGRICULTURE DEVASTATED BY NAFTA
Over 120 Mexican delegates attended, from universities,
rural organizations and labor unions. Gerardo Fernandez
Cazanova, president of a Mexican corn producers'
association, spoke of the vital importance that corn holds
for Mexico's economy. But, he said, that substantive element
has been wiped out by U.S. agribusiness.
"The peasant is seeing all his hopes for well-being
cancelled. Now we see only Continental-brand grain or
Cargill corn. Because of the agreements set by the World
Trade Organization, we see the disappearance of state
intervention that earlier benefited our national interests.
"In theory it is horrible, but for the family, for the
stomach, for the pocket, for the health care, for education
for our children, it is criminal."
NAFTA took effect in 1994 and has dealt a crushing blow to
Mexican agriculture. Giant U.S. agribusiness firms have
flooded Mexico with U.S. goods, selling corn to a country
that used to feed its own population and export the surplus
corn.
Jos� Naro, a member of Mexico's national parliament, said,
"The Mexican government stopped subsidies to Mexican farmers
at the demand of international banks, but the U.S. continues
to give massive subsidies to its agribusiness.
"This year U.S. companies will introduce close to 5,500,000
tons of corn [into Mexico]. We used to export it; now the
northern states are practically bankrupt."
The mass exodus of emigres from Latin America was raised by
Rocio Mejia, an Ecuadoran activist. The crisis comes from
the inability of nationally grown products to compete with
U.S. and other foreign-owned goods.
Mejia said, "Potatoes, rice, soy, corn, cocoa, coffee--not
even 45 percent of the costs of production are covered by
the prices we receive. Some 15,000 to 25,000 Ecuadorans have
to leave the country each month. In the first half of 2000
alone, more than 600,000 Ecuadorans had to emigrate, mostly
to Spain."
Almost 50 people attended the conference from the United
States, as well as dozens of labor and social activists from
Canada, with a large contingent of youth.
U.S. autoworker Martha Grevatt spoke on behalf of the U.S.-
Cuba Labor Exchange. "We join with all of you in condemning
the annexation scheme known as the FTAA," said Grevatt. "It
is a massive transfer of wealth created by all the workers
into the pockets of the U.S. ruling class. The gains of the
labor movement are under attack with these trade agreements
... from letting a woman take off work because she's
pregnant, or equal health benefits for people in same-sex
relationships."
She got strong applause when she condemned the U.S. war on
Afghanistan, as did other delegates. "We are part of a
worldwide growing anti-war movement. On Sept. 29, before the
bombing even started, tens of thousands protested in
Washington and throughout the U.S. to say no to racism and
war. ... During these difficult but necessary struggles, we
will draw strength from the revolutionary example of Cuba."
Cuban President Fidel Castro attended every session,
listening carefully to all the speeches. A few times he
intervened with insightful commentary on the issues of
globalization, the dilemma of the U.S. dollar dominating the
currency of oppressed countries, and Cuba's impressive
social gains in recent years despite the economic crisis
imposed from outside and the 43-year-long U.S. blockade.
During each recess, as the hundreds of delegates streamed
out of the hall to take a break, Castro took the time to
talk to dozens of youth and other delegates who sought to
chat with him, ask a question, or take a picture of the
great revolutionary leader.
President Castro gave the closing speech. He remarked on the
preparedness of the conference attendees, the depth of their
analysis, and how the four days of deliberations allowed him
to see how serious the crisis is in the continent.
"I had thought that FTAA was something bad, very bad, and
here I've seen that it is twice as bad as I had thought."
He reviewed the country's newest plans for elevating Cuba's
already impressive education system by introducing some
44,000 computers in the schools. Even in the most remote
corners of the island, children will have access to a
computer, because solar panels will provide their power.
Just days before the conference opened, Cuba was slammed
hard by Hurricane Michelle. As the country digs out, workers
are constructing housing materials night and day and
volunteers are working to save the crops. Because of the
evacuation of 750,000 Cuban citizens, only five lives were
lost in the storm.
That the conference even took place is testament to Cuba's
spirited example of leadership for workers and oppressed
peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.
A representative of Guatemala's revolutionary movement
thanked Cuba for hosting the conference. "We express our
recognition and admiration of Cuba, its people, its
Communist Party, its leaders and Comandante Fidel Castro.
They have constructed and are the symbol of hope, struggle
and a revolutionary, democratic and socialist perspective
for our peoples."
- END -
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 6, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: KEEPING "ALLIES" AT ARM'S LENGTH
Nothing indicates the predatory character of Bush's "war on
terror" more than the irritation between U.S. imperialism
and its rivals in Europe, also known as the NATO allies.
An article in the Nov. 25 issue of the Spanish daily
newspaper El Pais made this irritation clear: "The Europeans
resent being relegated by the U.S. to the role of
accessories," read its second headline. It quoted an
unidentified top NATO official's complaints. This French
minister described his country's humiliation at sending
troops to staging areas in Uzbekistan only to have them just
left there by U.S. commanders.
Though the spokespeople hid behind anonymity, the language
they used was still diplomatic. Behind these phrases is the
anger aroused by the arrogant Bush regime's slap in the face
of the European imperialists and their interests. Here's
what they really are furious about:
Just after the attacks of Sept. 11, the U.S. pushed a motion
through NATO. The other NATO powers ignored facts and
traditions and voted to invoke Article 5 of the treaty's
charter. That treated the terrorist attacks as an act of war
on the U.S. and obliged all the other NATO powers to defend
Washington.
It was an obvious distortion of Article 5, which covers an
attack from a country with an army. But all the imperialist
governments in Europe backed it anyway. Why? Because they
didn't want to be left out of the war that would result in a
redivision of the world's resources. They all wanted to be
players in "the great game," as former U.S. national
security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski described the
competition for energy resources in Central Asia.
To take the step of sending their youths into the jaws of a
war of "long duration," these European rulers had to
directly challenge their own masses. Right-wing heads of
state like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Jose Maria Aznar
in Spain were saluting the U.S. flag with more enthusiasm
than Donald Rumsfeld and offering their armies to the
coalition. Tony Blair became a better spokesperson for the
"anti-terror" offensive than Bush.
Gerhard Schroeder and Joshka Fischer in Germany ached to
sacrifice their youths just for the chance to make German
imperialism a player once more on the world's chessboard, as
it was before World War II.
The Japanese imperialists, too, chose to send a few warships
to the area, despite the strong anti-war sentiment at home.
In all cases these governments risked arousing the
population against what was turning into an obviously
aggressive war that could inflict casualties on their
youths. More than 100,000 people came into the streets to
protest in Rome and in London, and in all NATO countries
people mobilized against the war.
But once the U.S. rulers got their European rivals'
political support, once the Taliban appeared to collapse and
the Pentagon generals were convinced that U.S. forces, with
limited aid from Britain, could handle the military action
by themselves, Rumsfeld told the European leaders, "We'll
call you when and if we need you." Washington didn't want to
consult with its allies before taking action. During NATO's
war of aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, the need to
consult sometimes delayed U.S. bombing of civilian targets
in the Serbian population centers.
Washington even put a stop sign in front of a British
military occupation of Afghan cities, holding back their
most loyal junior partners. Of course, that might have had
something to do with the long and unpopular colonialist
reputation of the British in that area of the world.
In addition, the U.S. generals want no witnesses to their
actions in Afghanistan, as the El Pais article also noted.
The slaughter of allegedly rebelling "hard-core" Taliban
prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif could be exposed as a massacre
ordered and partly carried out by U.S. forces--who were
themselves following the political instructions of U.S.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
The irony is that this U.S.-directed massacre comes just
after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia--NATO's court--brought a trumped-up charge, with
no evidence, of genocide against former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic concerning his support for Serb
nationalist forces during the Bosnian civil war.
The so-called war against terror is really a war for
plunder. Each of the imperialist ruling classes wants its
share of the loot and a say in how the world is divided. At
this point the U.S. imperialist ruling class wants all the
power of decision, even if it means the deaths of more U.S.
forces.
That's the only logical way to interpret the annoyance the
European leaders feel at not being in the action, and the
U.S. rulers' decision, so far, to keep them out.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 6, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AT FRENCH APPLIANCE COMPANY:
MILITANT ACTION WINS SEVERANCE PAY
By G. Dunkel
The big sign hanging on the Moulinex plant in Cormelles-le-
Royal, France, summed it up: "Money or boom."
Moulinex, a midsize maker of small appliances in France,
went bankrupt in early September. The German firm SEB bought
the company, located in a small town in France's northern
"rust belt." SEB decided to move most of its production out
of France.
Workers demanded a severance bonus. Some 50 to 100 workers,
according to a union spokesperson, put "acid, acetylene, gas
and petrol at strategic points so that they can blow the
place if we don't get the money we are asking for."
After occupying their plants for three months, holding the
government's negotiator hostage, burning down an unused
warehouse and threatening to "blow the place," the 4,400
workers at Moulinex finally won their demand.
Those with over 25 years seniority--more than two-thirds of
the workforce--will get a bonus of about $17,000, as well as
the normal layoff and unemployment benefits.
Five of the six union confederations involved in the
struggle signed off on the agreement on Nov. 21. The sixth
confederation, the CFDT, is expected to sign soon.
The workers have dismantled their protest occupation and the
new owners are preparing to move the machinery.
WHAT MAKES THE BOSSES LISTEN?
Some officials of the CFDT had urged the workers not to
destroy the factory, saying that would destroy any chance of
finding a buyer who might restore their jobs. But the
workers didn't agree.
Antonio Thomas, a 28-year veteran of the Cormelles factory,
told the Wall Street Journal that threats of violence "are
the only thing that makes management and politicians listen.
It's our only weapon to put pressure on them."
Another worker, who gave her name as Patricia, told
Lib�ration, "September 11, that's dramatic; the fall of the
Airbus in New York, that's dramatic; but us losing our jobs,
that's dramatic, too."
The past few years in France, workers have resorted to bold
tactics in their struggles with management.
Facing cutbacks, bank workers at Credit Foncier and aluminum
workers at Pechiney kidnapped management executives. Brewery
workers in Alsace-Loraine in eastern France flooded the
streets with beer. Textile workers dumped sulfuric acid and
threatened to detonate chemicals stored in their factory.
France does not have a Bill of Rights. It has "anti-
terrorist" laws that are in many respects more severe than
similar laws in the United States. But the state in France
couldn't charge the Moulinex workers and their unions with
terrorist acts because the French working class regards what
they did as valid tactics in the class struggle.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 6, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LETERS TO THE EDITOR
COCA-COLA AND GUATEMALA
Rebeca Toledo's article "Cite Coca-Cola in death-squad
killings" comes as no surprise. The same criminal acts were
committed by Coca-Cola in Guatemala during the dirty war
there. Company terrorism and murder of union people at Coke
in Guatemala was reported early on by Workers World. Then
years later I saw a corroborating article in the Baltimore
Sun. They did the same thing on the massacre of half a
million leftists in Indonesia in 1965. The Sun waited to
report on it until the mid 1990s. Maybe in 10 years or so
the Sun's subscribers will be able to read the important
information Ms. Toledo has passed on to us in the last issue
of Workers World.
If one wants to get the news now instead of a decade later,
read Workers World. And next time you're in the soda aisle
at the grocery remember this--Terrorism goes better with
Coke.
-- Kermit Leibensperger
Sykesville, MD
TOXIC DANGERS UNREPORTED
Thank you for your recent article about the continuing
dangers faced by workers and residents in and around lower
Manhattan. This is a subject that has been purposely swept
under the rug by officials, requiring the initiative of the
private sector to keep things "honest." Private individuals
and companies obtained more complete data through
independent toxicological testing and through FOIA requests
of government-sponsored testing results.
I am sending you a copy of a press release prepared by
myself and others who have been injured/disabled by toxic
substances in our homes and workplaces. This was issued
early last month since the sequelae of the WTC explosions
and collapses were completely predictable. Based upon what
is known about the tower construction and normal hazards
presented by fires and building debris, such a conclusion
was inescapable.
Please continue your coverage of this important issue which
affects workers all over the world on a daily basis. Injury
from chemical exposure and particulate matter pollutants is
preventable, but only if the public is kept informed and
realizes they are responsible for their own health and
safety. In the end, economics will always delay
dissemination of such health warnings. Only when
injury/illness has befallen large enough numbers of persons
to make the concern impossible to hide any longer.
-- Barbara Rubin
FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:
Over the past several weeks official, but largely
unsubstantiated, claims of "safety" for those breathing in
the dust and smoke still emanating from the WTC recovery
site, became a call to action for a group of people who
suffer from a range of serious health problems brought on by
overexposure to toxic chemicals. Calling themselves the 911
ASH organization, the acronym refers to issues of "air
safety hazards."
Spokespersons Barbara Rubin (New York) and Cyndi Norman
(California) are part of an international internet network
of people sharing experiences and scientific data about
environmentally induced injuries and autoimmune diseases.
"As the story unfolded," said Rubin, "we began to realize
the implications for adverse short and long-term health
effects to unprotected rescue workers and residents in the
path of the dust and smoke."
Officials have minimized the risks faced by New Yorkers and
issued claims of safety; claims made even prior to the
completion of many tests being run. That was sufficient for
Rubin to want to get out a strong message to her fellow New
Yorkers. "Most of us were injured--and many permanently
disabled--by chemical exposures which industry and the
government kept assuring us were 'safe.'" Rubin suffers from
the aftermath of pesticide poisoning.
News footage of the WTC rescue efforts confirmed their worst
fears. Many rescue workers and others at Ground Zero wore
paper or cloth masks, inadequate protection for fine
particulate matter or gasses, including asbestos, soot, and
volatile chemicals.
"We think workers and residents should assume the worst
about what is in their air, water and the dust and use the
right safety equipment from the beginning," said Norman.
"Doesn't that make more sense than assuming it is safe and
finding out 20 years from now that the official statements
were wrong?"
There are no scientific papers detailing the creation,
dispersion, and long and short-term effects of a tragedy of
this magnitude. Asbestos and fiberglass are clearly present,
as is soot; fine particles known to increase the incidence
and symptoms of asthma, heart disease, and other medical
conditions. What are rarely mentioned are the myriad toxins
in the smoke itself. Since no one knows exactly what this
particular combination of plastics, PVC, office furniture,
carpet, freon, natural gas, jet fuel, metals, asbestos,
glass, fiberglass, and other components of the office
buildings do when incinerated, it is impossible to fully
test for toxic exposures.
The Environmental Protection Agency, along with the New York
City Department of Public Health and others, have released
test results for only a few of the better known toxins, such
as asbestos, radiation, carbon monoxide, and
bacterial/infectious materials. They have ignored most of
the components of the smoke and toxins bound to dust
particles. When they say the air is "safe," they mean that
the chemicals they tested for fall within limits they
consider acceptable for the general population. However, it
should be emphasized that these "acceptable limits" for
hazardous levels of substances are meant to apply to healthy
adults, not to children, elderly, or infirm persons.
To aid the public in educating themselves in such matters,
911 ASH has put together a website with information about
World Trade Center toxins, health risks, and safety
equipment. The website address is
http://www.immuneweb.org/911. Readers are urged to discuss
these issues with their physicians and elected officials.
Barbara Rubin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cyndi Norman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
