By John Clancy [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 > >Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 14:40:52 EST > >This was sent to me from someone in the vietnamese community in >regards to sweatshops. Please read. Lils > >Dear Friends > >Please help me to help our Vietnamese countrymen and women. They are >crying and need our help. Currently, I am living in American Samoa >in the South Pacific Island, near Guam and Fiji. > >There are currently 250 Vietnamese garment workers, only 20 are men, >the rest are women in their mid20's. These Vietnamese came to Samoa >to work for a Korean company, called "Daewoosa" (a >sweatshop business). Yesterday, there was a riot. Many Samoan >workers beat up our Vietnamese workers. They were ordered by the >President, Kilsoo Lee who at the compound, that "go ahead beat them >(vietnamese) up until they die. If they die, I will responsible for >it." > >This was at 9:30AM. I arrived to Daewoosa at 10:00AM, cooled down >the riot, roughly around 300 people there, cops were all over the >place, people with blood. Around 11:00AM, everything was cooled down. >20 of us went to the police station. My attorney was with me. All >of us got out at 3:00 pm, ran to the hospital, Quyen (21 years >old)was hit hard to her eyeball, so the doctor took one of her eyes >out. She blinds now. That night, everyone was so afraid, >and throughout the night, we went in and out Daewoosa to rescue many >of the workers out of the compound of Daewoosa. Kilsoo Lee has a >stone hearted man. > >The parent of Daewoosa is Daewoo. For the past six months, the >vietnamese workers did not get pay. when they were promised to get >$700-$1000 a month in Vietnam, but when they came here, they got $408 >a month. Most of them paid betweeen $4-8K to get a job here for >3 years. > > How can you help? 1. Stop buying Daewoo's products. 2. Help me to >compose a letter to our congressmen/women 3. Create a website. I will >provide you with all the contexts. 4. Let more people know about this >situation 5. Be more responsible to what we buy > >For more information on this, please read the Samoa News on November >28, 2000 at http://www.samoanews.com > >I talked to the bishop Quinn here at Samoa. He really supports us. He >will write a letter to the governor of this island and protect the >vietnamese. The problem between Daesoosa and Vietnamese has been more >than a year and half. Thank you for your help. Stay tune as I have >more time to update you with more information. You can also check >out RADIO BOLSA and NGAY NAY NEWS. I will try to call the station >everyday to update them. > >Keep us in our prayers. Please prayers for strength and wisdom >and courage to stand up for justice. Your brother in Christ, > >HUY LE > *********** > >from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: ARAFAT THE CORRUPT, BETRAYER OF PALESTINIANS >Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 > > > _______ ____ ______ > / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S > / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East >/_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ http://www.MiddleEast.Org > > News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, > and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! > * * * * * * * > IF YOU DON'T GET MER, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! > To receive MER regularly email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > PROBLEM IS, IT'S THE SAME OLD REPRESSIVE AND CORRUPT ARAFAT > >MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 12/04: Now >Arafat says he doesn't trust Barak -- imagine that! Now Arafat >has put on his gun again -- and imagine that! Problem is, this is >the same Arafat who wanted to hand over that gun, in public at the >White House to Bill Clinton, in September 1993 -- the Israelis >actually had to step in and squash that one. Problem is this is the >same Arafat who along with his cronies have stolen hundreds of >millions of dollars in the past few years and squirreled it all away >in secret bank accounts. Problem is this is the same Arafat who is >deeply interconnected with the CIA. And the problems go on and on. > > The Palestinian people are oppressed and disposessed for many >reasons. First of course because of the terribly oppressive policies >of the Israeli occupier. And then because of the policies of the >United States. Third because of the actual policies (rather than the >stated ones) of the Arab "client regime" states that owe their >existence to the U.S. But also because of the >miserably corrupt, repressive, and cannibalistic policies of the >Arafat Authority, specifically designed to fit right in to the >"client regimes" arrangement in the region. > > This is also a good time to recall David Hirst's masterful essay >about the "Palestinian Authority" a few years ago in The Guardian >which follows. > > ARAFAT DISPLAYS GUN IN PUBLIC >By Ibrahim Barzak > >GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (Associated Press - Monday, Dec. 4, 2000) –– >Yasser Arafat displayed a holstered pistol Monday – the first time he >has shown a weapon in public since returning from exile in 1994, and >reviving memories of the day he carried a gun into the United Nations >more than a quarter-century ago. > >The Palestinian leader said the gesture was an expression of anger >over the blocking of a key road by Jewish settlers. The settlers' >demonstration delayed his drive back to his Gaza City office after a >trip to Arab countries. > >More broadly, the display of the weapon reflected the >deteriorating relations between Israel and the Palestinians after >more than two months of clashes, in which almost 300 people, most of >them Palestinians, have been killed. > >The settlers were protesting a decision by the Israeli military to >allow a resumption of Palestinian traffic on the Salah Edin Road. The >Israelis closed the road to Palestinian traffic two weeks ago after a >deadly bomb attack on a school bus. > >Israeli authorities cleared the settlers from the road Monday, and >Arafat was able to continue back to Gaza City after a delay of more >than an hour at the Rafah border crossing. > >Afterward, Arafat pulled out a German-made machine pistol and gripped >it by its carrying case as he passed an honor guard at his office in >Gaza City. Talking to reporters, he charged angrily that the Israeli >army coordinated the protest with the settlers to block his way. > >"The most important thing is that right now they were closing Salah >Edin Road and that is why I am carrying this," he said, referring to >the squat weapon, partially covered with a carrying case. > >The Israeli military rejected Arafat's charge that it coordinated >the demonstration with the settlers. "The settlers close roads and we >clear them," the military said in a statement. Police detained some >of the protesters after they sat down on the road to block it. > >Arafat entered Gaza in triumph in 1994 after an interim peace >agreement with Israel allowed him to set up the Palestinian Authority >to administer parts of the West Bank and Gaza. He never stopped >wearing his military-style uniform, but he did not display arms. > >While in exile, he carried a pistol in a holster. He caused an uproar >on Nov. 13, 1974, by carrying a gun into the U.N. General Assembly. >It was practically unheard of for a world leader to bring a weapon >into the building. > >In his speech then, Arafat said he had come "bearing an olive branch >and a freedom fighter's gun," and added, "Do not let the olive branch >fall from my hand." > >The machine pistol Araat picked up Monday is one of the weapons his >guards carry in his car, a bodyguard said. His decision to carry the >weapon in view of reporters appeared to be a symbolic gesture, since >he did not threaten anyone with it. But it showed how deep the anger >and mistrust has become with the continuing violence and the absence >of peace negotiations. > >Holding the weapon at his side, Arafat told reporters that >international mediators must work to "stop (Israeli) violence and >aggression against our people." > >Israel charges that Arafat is responsible for the violence, >characterized in recent weeks by Palestinian gunfire at Israeli army >posts and settlements and roadside bomb attacks. > >In recent days the level of unrest has dropped, and Israel has been >easing some of its restrictions. > >The Israelis closed the main north-south road through Gaza to >Palestinian traffic two weeks ago, after a roadside bomb hit a school >bus, killing two Israeli adults and wounding nine people, including >several children who lost limbs. On Monday the Israelis reopened the >road, citing relative calm in the area. > >Settlers demonstrated in protest. Ronit Haratz, one of the >demonstrators, said, "Every time there is an attack, they close the >road for a while, and then they reopen it and there is another >attack." She also objected to allowing Arafat to use the road. > >Elsewhere on the Gaza Strip on Monday, an explosion killed an >Islamic militant, apparently as he was preparing to plant a bomb. And >on the West Bank, Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen waged fierce >shootouts in and around biblical ethlehem. > > --------------------------- > >MER FLASHBACK - April 1997 > > ARAFAT IN GAZA: > "A REGIME OF EXTORTION" > > MER - If you only have time for one article about the so- >called > "Peace Process" and what has been done to the Palestinian > people since the Gulf War -- READ THIS ONE! AND READ > IT IN FULL! David Hirst is one of the most seasoned veteran > journalists in the Middle East today. This article is from >the > GUARDIAN WEEKLY, 27 April. > > > SHAMLESS IN GAZA > By David Hirst > > Yasser Arafat and his 'Tunisians' have turned the >Palestinians' homeland into a ramshackle, nepotistic >regime of extortion.... > >GAZA is the most conservative of Palestinian communities; its >Islamist militants once set fire to a sea-front hotel, a restaurant >and other such dens of iniquity. > >So imagine the pious horror at the opening of Gaza's first and >only nightclub. On a Thursday evening of the Muslim weekend, I found >the Zahra al-Mada'in, the Flower of the Cities, packed almost to >capacity, not just with lonely young men come to admire Gaza's first >belly dancers and songstresses -- locally recruited gypsies -- but >with entire families, women, children and even a babe-in-arms. > >In other smart or risque places, you can add illicit liquor to >your Coca-Cola, but here -- in another Gazan first -- you can order >your scotch or your Israeli Maccabee beer on the very premises. >However the oddest thing is not so much the place, but the clientele: >they are mainly "Tunisians", not Gazans at all. > >Tunis was Yasser Arafat's last headquarters in exile, and "the >Tunisians" is a nickname which Gazans gave to those, officially known >as "returnees", who came with him when, following the Oslo accord he >established himself here instead. There are about 10,000 of them, >bureaucrats who run his Palestinian Authority, former guerillas who >dominate his enormous security apparatus." > > PHOTO: Suha Arafat laughing beneath a photo of Yasser. Caption: >"Suha Arafat: in charge of private slush fund." > >The Tunisians" have "come home" to the soil of Palestine itself. But >the terrible irony is that they are not merely strangers in their own >land, they are for the most part disliked, despised, even hated. It >is they who introduced such abominations as Zahra al-Mada'in. > >But it is not just Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or bigots in general, who >feel the shock. Liberals who welcome any challenge to the dour local >mores feel it too. For almost everyone, "the Tunisians" are as alien, >as unfit to rule, as those -- Turks, British, Egyptians, Israelis -- >who came before them. And because they are actually Palestinians, and >came as "liberators", the shock is even worse.Arafat's Palestine >Revolution never made itself very popular, among >governments, elites or even ordinary people of the territories it >passed through . > >But at least in Jordan, in the sixties, its men truly fought and >died. So -- though with less purpose or conviction -- did they in >Lebanon in the seventies and eighties. Obviously, during the eighties >and nineties, they could not fight from Tunis, and other far-flung >Arab countries in which they fetched up, but at least, as members of >the world's richest liberation movement, they continued to pump money >into local economies. > >Here, in the homeland itself, far from fighting the former Zionist >foe, they lead the collaboration with it. They may attract money -- >in the form of international aid -- to this poorest of Palestin an >communities, but they take at least as much away from it. They are >oppressive -- and immeasurably corrupt. > >"We live in amazing, shameful times," said one of Gaza's merchant >princes, and a former Fatah fighter himself, "but you should know >that every revolution has its fighters, thinkers and profiteers. Our >fighters have been killed, our thinkers assassinated, and all we have >left are the profiteers. These don't think even primarily of the >cause, they don't think about it at all. They know that they are just >transients here, as they were in Tunis, and, as with any >regime whose end is near, they think only of profiting from it while >they can." > >This is a damning indictment, but if any system can be measured by >the conduct of its bureaucrats it is a fair one. In fact, the justice >of it hits even a casual visitor in the eye. Just go to the district >of Rimal. Rimal means "sand", and on this former wasteland there is >now arising, at incredible speed, the most up-market neighbourhood of >"liberated" Gaza. > >You might not think it at first sight; a sand-smothered, refuse- >strewn mess of empty lots amid shacks that are disappearing and half- >finished concrete monsters that are taking their place, it differs >little in spirit from the rest of this desolate, infinitely decrepit >and unsightly city. > >But it is mainly here that "the Tunisians" have taken root, with >their amazing array of "ministries", "authorities" and special >"agencies", police stations and sentry posts, choice rooftop >apartments, villas and places of entertainment. Here is Arafat's own >sea-front bureau -- al-Muntada, The Club -- with >all the "presidential" trappings he so adores, and here in the very >next building, is the Zahra al-Mada'in cabaret. > >Here you will sooner or later run into Suha, his young wife, out for >lunch at Le Mirage, an exclusive sea-front restaurant, with her >infant daughter and a posse of Force-17 bodyguards. You will run into >her, at least, when she is not in Paris, where she does her shopping >and can find a decent hairdresser, unlike the first, disastrous Gazan >one, who reportedy turned her blonde locks almost orange . > > PHOTO: Palestinians throwing stones. Caption: While ordinary >Palestinians continue to fight on the streets against Jewish >settlements, their rulers are busy lining their own pockets. > >And you are bound to come across Susie, her ample British nanny who >affects leopard-skin tights and often has too much to drink, a >condition in which she is apt to dispense indiscretions about the >presidential household, threatening, some fear, another Middle >Eastern nanny scandal of Netanyahu proportions. > >Among the fancy new villas, fanciest is that of Abu Mazen, key >negotiator of the ill-fated Oslo accord. It is not clear who paid for >this $2 million-plus affair, all balconies and balustrades in gothic >profusion, but the graffiti which some irreverent scoundrel scrawled >on its wall proclaimed that "this is your reward for selling >Palestine". > >Lifestyles match. Nabil Shaath, the highly articulate minister of >planning much seen on Western TV screens, recently took a wife young >enough to be his daughter. He required four receptions to celebrate >this event, in Cairo, Gaza -- and two in Jerusalem. Because his >Israeli friends could not go to the one in East Jerusalem's Orient >House, that "illegal" outpost of the Palestinian Authority, he >had another in the Ambassador Hotel. > >For salutary contrast with Rimal, just stroll up the coast where, >just beyond Le Mirage, you will come upon the awful squalor and open >sewers of the Shati' refugee camp, conditions resembling those n >which most Gazans live. > >There, in a windowless concrete block they call "the cafe", I asked >some day labourers, idled by yet another Israeli border closure, >whether they thought that Gaza's per capita income, far from rising, >had actually fallen by as much as 39 per cent since the Oslo accord. >For that is what a recent UN survey says. "More like 75 per cent," >one replied. "some no longer think it a shame to send their children >out to beg." That also seems to be borne out by the UN report, which >records an "alarming" increase in "child labour". > >More shocking, really, than the contrast itself is what lies behind >it. When he first came here, Arafat said he would turn Gaza into a >"new Singapore". Palestinian businessmen, who made their fortunes >building the Arab oil states, would help him build his. > >But, three years on, it is clear that none will seriously touch it. >Not just the Israelis deter them, with their repeated frontier >closures that bedevil businessmen as well as workers In truth, Arafat >does not want them either. For they would undermine his control, >achieved through a combination of police surveillance and money >power. So instead of any kind of independent, creative, wealth- >producing capitalism, he and his coterie of unofficial economic >"advisers" have thrown up a ramshackle, nepotistic edifice of >monopoly, racketeering and naked extortion that enriches them as it >further impoverishes society at large. > >Two years ago, the al-Bahr company barely existed. Al-Bahr means >"sea". But Gazans now dub it "the ocean", because, they say, "it is >swallowing Gaza whole". Legally speaking, not being officially >registered, it should not be operating at all. Yet it is so brazen >about its powerful connections that -- to the impotent indignation of >the Palestinian "parliament" -- it even uses the Authority's >letter heads. It belongs to Arafat, or, more precisely, to his wife >Suha and the other "shareholders" who handle his private finances. >Al-Bahr -- who else? -- runs the Zahra al-Mada'in nightclub. The >premises were supposed to go by open tender to the >most qualified bidder. But Arafat just signed a decree placing it in >his protege's hands. It is never by fair, and often by quite foul, >means that Arafat In corporated moves into real estate, >entertainment, computers, advertising, medicine, insurance. Only the >most powerful Gazan businessmen can resist its encroachments. >It goes chiefly after small and medium fry. These are pressed into >"partnership" with al-Bahr. > >Al-Bahr is the new, strictly domestic instrument of Arafat's takeover >of the Gazan economy. It complements already existing monopolies, for >the import of such basic commodities as cement, petrol or flour, >which he operates in complicity with the Israelis. For example, out >of the $74 for which a ton of cement is sold in Gaza, $17 goes to the >Authority, and $17 into his own account in a Tel Aviv bank. > >It is no secret what Arafat uses this money for. "I shall give you >all you want if you obey and protect me -- and give me all I want." >That has always been his message to his nomenklatura, and it has been >amazingly successful. For what resistance can be expected from an >apparatus whose minister of civil affairs, Jamil Tarifi, a big >contractor, goes on building Israeli settlements even as the >Palestinian people threaten a new intifada over Har Homa? Or whose >high officials use their VIP cars to sail through Israeli checkpoints >on their way to the fleshpots of Tel Aviv even as Israel! i border >closures rob day labourers of their menial wage? > >Rarely can a revolution have degenerated like Arafat's -- and yet >survived. It only survives because, in robbing his people to bribe >his buraucrats, he has proved so great a commitment to the peace >process that the parties on which he now completely depends -- >Israelis, Americans, the international community at large -- are >willing to ignore, even encourage, his manifest >corruptions. The Israelis may be embarrassed by the latest, >scandalous revelations of their leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, about >the Arafat slush fund that the great peace-maker, Yitzhak Rabin, >authorised. But so long as Arafat goes on bending to >their conception of the peace, they will go on letting him draw on >it. > >European governments would be far more embarrassed if it were >established that Arafat really does earn far more from al-Bahr and >his illicit monopolies than from all their aid combined. But unless >the scandal becomes too great, they will go on paying too. But they >delude themselves if they think that they can go on propping him up >for ever. And in this regard, it seems, Arafat and >his "Tunisians" are more clear-headed than they are. They know that >there is a point beyond which even he cannot go without risking his >people's wrath. > >Small wonder then that, according to Ha'aretz, a part of Arafat's >secret fund is earmarked for "emergency situations", such as a coup >or a civil war, in which he, his family and immediate entourage could >be forced to flee into exile once more, and re-establish the >leadership from there. They know, better than anyone, that the peace >process, and all they get out of it, is built, like the Zahra a M >ada'in, on nothing more solid than the fine white powdery sands >of Rimal. " JC > > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________________________ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for geopolitics. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________________
