People Before Profit blog

Social Security: Bush and GOP Offer only Privatization or Benefit Cuts

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 06:52:00 +0000

4-29-05, 2:36 pm

During his prime time news conference Thursday evening, President Bush offered a new twist to his Social Security privatization plan. Using the term 'sliding scale,' Bush unveiled new rhetorical euphemisms for cutting benefits.

Meanwhile, Bush’s privatization plan remains bogged down in Congress. Most Democrats refuse to support a bill that privatizes Social Security and requires massive benefit cuts. Benefit cuts have become a non-starter for them.

Republicans on the other hand are feeling the heat from constituents. Social Security provides benefits for close to 50 million retirees, their dependents and survivors, and disabled people and their dependents. About 159 million future retirees are covered by Social Security.

Only Republican hard liners support Bush’s plan hook line and sinker. Still, while the hard right quietly would like to achieve Bush’s real goal – elimination of Social Security as a public program – they fear the transition could harm Republican reelection chances. They also have drawn a line against raising taxes to fund benefits.

Cutting benefits, then, remains the best offer the Republicans have for 'strengthening' Social Security.

They can’t explain, however, how privatization would fiscally strengthen the program itself or the US Treasury in general. Bush has even admitted that privatization wouldn’t boost Social Security’s projected financial picture.

The Center for American Progress points out that 'privatization requires trillions of dollars in new debt, worsening Social Security’s solvency and placing huge burdens on future generations.' The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates that Bush’s privatization plan would add $4.9 trillion in new debt in its first 20 years.

Data provided by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that the average retiree would lose as much as $152,000 in retirements benefits if Social Security were privatized. Benefits would be cut by 40 percent even for workers who do not choose private accounts.

But the gouging wouldn’t stop there. The CBPP argues that because of the way private accounts would be structured, the government would extract another 70 cents on the dollar from each account.

On top of hiding this information, the Bush administration has provided little in-depth analysis of how private accounts would actually work. This is because they know that most people don’t trust private investment. The recent stock market mini-collapse over the past two weeks show the dangers of basing such a large program, on which tens of millions of people rely, on investment in the stock market.

Most people agree that Enron-style corruption and waste are problems that occur far too often on Wall Street to entrust their retirement futures to it. But even if Wall Street wasn’t basically corrupt and greedy, and if it was a stable form of investment, private accounts couldn’t provide as much income as current Social Security benefits do. Even if private accounts provided a return equal to realistic estimates of what small, long-term stock market investors can expect, it wouldn’t equal current Social Security benefits.

This issue hasn’t come up in Bush’s taxpayer-funded public relations tour to promote Social Security privatization.

Small rates of return from private accounts would lead many retirees to want to withdraw funds from their investment principal to cover shortfalls in monthly income for day-to-day expenses.

The problem is that government regulations wouldn’t let them do it. And this is what Bush doesn’t talk about either, for a very good reason. Privatization would require strict controls over how much retirees could withdraw from their accounts because what happens when a few million people, short on income for the month, decide to take several hundred dollars from their accounts all at once?

Hundreds of millions even billions of dollars would be extracted from the stock market in a very short period of time, creating a stock market crash that could simply wipe out millions in value from all private accounts.

Private accounts would create the conundrum of increased financial hardship for retirees or frequent stock market problems. Who do you think the privatization plan favors?

So, step back, clear away the fog, and examine closely Bush’s privatization plan: It hands trillions in public resources over to a handful of private corporations in accounts strictly regulated by the government and tightly controlled by private corporations. The result would be that big investment firms would get rich off of brokerage fees and investment returns, using your savings, while retirees and disabled workers would lose control over their savings and would see a smaller rate of return than Social Security currently provides.

Social Security’s Future Strength

So what can we do now to strengthen Social Security without gutting the program and ultimately destroying it?

Social Security is financed through a payroll tax, but stagnant real wages over the last 20 years for most workers means their real contributions have also been relatively stagnant. Good jobs, job security, and union wages (about 22 percent higher than non-union wages) would promote adequate wage growth that would strengthen Social Security’s financial picture by expanding its revenue base.

Of additional significance to Social Security’s financial health has been a 'cap' on income that is subject to the payroll tax. Currently income over $90,000 isn’t subject to the payroll tax. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that eliminating the 'cap' would inject billions into the program and wipe out 90 percent of the projected financial shortfall.

In fact, EPI says, demographic issues like a perceived unfavorable worker/retiree ratio is negligible compared to the wage trend and the cap issues.

How is it possible that these simple methods for strengthening Social Security could be missed so easily by Congress?

Look, it’s easy: Create new jobs and protect real wage growth Eliminate the cap on taxable income Don’t spend the Social Security surplus; save it

None of these immediate solutions require massive debt, huge benefits cuts, crazy investment schemes, or threats to future retirees. They don’t even require major ideological concessions by most members of Congress – with the exception of the hard right that wants Social Security eliminated.

Longer-term solutions do, however, require a shift of policy priorities and political power away from the hard right that dominates the Republican Party: Stop spending half of our country’s financial resources on wars and the military; Invest in long-term job creation and trade deals that promote job growth here Re-institute a progressive tax structure that requires the already successful to pay their fair share Aggressively control skyrocketing health care costs Institute adequate occupational safety and health regulations that protect workers from injury and disability.

--Joel Wendland can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

Ethics Reversal Signals DeLay’s Isolation

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 06:47:00 +0000

4-29-05, 2:31 pm

Ethics committee rules changes designed to protect House Majority Leader Tom DeLay from investigation were reversed by the Republican-controlled House on Wednesday.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who ordered a vote on reversal of the rules changes, described the retreat as an effort to come to an agreement with Democrats to reopen the ethics committee.

The real reason, however, was that the Republican leadership understood that it needed to repair its public image heavily damaged by the DeLay scandals and the public’s understanding that the Party adopted new rules to prevent a probe into DeLay’s dealings.

The rules changes were ordered in the fall of 2004 after the ethics committee rebuked DeLay unanimously for the third time. DeLay was admonished for threatening a Republican member with retribution if he did not support the Republican Party leadership’s position on Bush’s Medicare bill.

The ethics committee previously rebuked DeLay for abusing his position to use federal resources in a state electoral dispute and for allowing the appearance of influence peddling and solicitation of bribes.

The consequence of the reversal is the ethics committee will be able to investigate and publicize its findings about DeLay’s relationships with shady lobbyists, acceptance of all-expenses-paid trips in exchange for favorable consideration of pending congressional business, and new allegations of improperly soliciting campaign donations. The reversal is the clearest signal that the Republican Party leadership may be giving DeLay up in the hopes that it can avoid an electoral backlash in the 2006 election. The Party has been moving towards distancing itself from DeLay for some time.

In recent weeks, some GOP members publicly called on DeLay to make a clean breast of his dealings; others called on him to temporarily step down. Others described the ethics rules changes as creating a credibility problem for the ethics review process.

More recently, donations to DeLay’s once robust legal defense fund have dried to a trickle.

In legislative business, Party discipline, a major responsibility of a majority leader, on key issues like budget cuts and Social Security privatization has splintered. Some 44 Republicans signed a letter in March opposing Bush’s planned cuts into Medicaid spending. Defections on issues like cuts in farm subsidies and other projects also occurred.

DeLay’s public relations tour with President Bush was described as a show of support for the beleaguered House Majority Leader, but DeLay’s isolation and the pressure on him was revealed more honestly when he snapped at reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this week.

As reporters insisted on asking DeLay about new revelations of possible ethics violations, DeLay snapped, 'You guys better get out of my way. Where’s security?'

According to the Houston Chronicle, Wednesday’s action is the Republicans’ second reversal on ethics issues related to DeLay this year. In January, DeLay convinced the leaders of his Party to accept a rules change that would have allowed him to keep his leadership position if indicted by a Texas grand jury currently investigating DeLay’s role in soliciting corporate donations to a political action committee he controls in exchange for favorable consideration of legislation.

The Republicans backed away from that position only after public pressure prompted reconsideration.

--Leo Walsh can be reached at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.

Pressure on Wal-Mart over discrimination grows

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 01:37:00 +0000

4-29-05, 9:22 am

From UNI News Desk Via LabourStart

Five distinguished members of the US Congress have added their support to the 'Love Mom, not Wal-Mart' campaign, which is linked to American Mother's Day and is the latest initiative by .

The five are Representatives Rosa DeLauro, George Miller, Linda Sanchez, Hilda Solis, and Jan Schakowsky.

Rep Rosa DeLauro has also called for a Congressional review of Wal-Mart's wage statistics and urged Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott to disclose the data.

Wal-Mart is the US's biggest employer and is currently the subject of the largest class action lawsuit in US history citing discrimination against its women workers.

The five joined with Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice-President of the AFL-CIO, a plaintiff in the Wal-Mart gender discrimination lawsuit and former Miss America Carolyn Sapp to pledge their support for the 'Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart' campaign.

The campaign has unveiled the 'Mother of all Mother's Day' card - an enormous 8 x 8 foot card as a symbol of how large Wal-Mart's discrimination problem is - that calls on Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to stop ignoring the company's record of discrimination and start doing the right thing for all our Moms and all women.

The five Representatives signed the card, which reads: 'Dear Lee Scott, It's time for Wal-Mart to honor and respect all women. This Mother's Day, Wal-Mart should stop discriminating against women. Happy Mother's Day, WakeUpWalmart.com.'

The campaign highlights Wal-Mart's terrible record of discriminating against women workers. The company is currently involved in a gender discrimination lawsuit covering more than 1.5 million women.

The suit documents Wal-Mart's systematic discrimination against women for lower pay and unequal promotion. In fact, in a recent study, women made-up 72% of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce, but accounted for only 33% of managers and only 15% of store managers. In addition, women earned from 5% to 15% less than men for the exact same work. This equates to nearly 40 cents less per hour for female hourly workers or nearly $5,000 less per year for female managers.

'We are so pleased that these well-respected leaders have joined America's campaign to change Wal-Mart,' said Paul Blank, WakeUpWalmart.com Campaign Director. 'We can only hope that this Mother's Day, on behalf of all mothers and women across America, Wal-Mart will finally do the right thing and end its discrimination of its women workers.'

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro released a 'dear colleague' letter for other Congressional members to sign calling for a Congressional review of Wal-Mart's wage statistics. The letter reads: 'We would ask Wal-Mart to disclose its wage statistics for congressional review, including any documents submitted to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission'.

The 'Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart' campaign is kicking off a two-week effort, including blog ads and on-the-ground organizing, to ask all Americans to sign the 'Mother's Day Pledge' promising not to buy their Mother's Day gift at Wal-Mart this year until Wal-Mart finally ends its discrimination against women workers. Already, thousands of Americans have signed the pledge.

'How can America's richest company and largest employer of women discriminate against more than 1.5 million of its women workers, many of them Moms? It is time for Wal-Mart to wake up and stop treating its female employees and their families like second class citizens,' added Susan Phillips, Director of Women's Outreach for WakeUpWalMart.com.

The 'Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart' campaign is part of WakeUpWalmart.com, a growing grassroots campaign calling on Wal-Mart to change.

As part of the Mother's Day campaign, supporters can sign the Mother's Day pledge and send the pledge to their friends. Supporters will also be able to send Mother's day e-cards, purchase discounted flowers and download a volunteer action toolkit which contains a fact sheet and flyer detailing Wal-Mart's record of gender discrimination.

Venezuela Launches Hemispheric TV Network

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 01:35:00 +0000

4-29-05, 9:19 am

Chávez Launches Hemispheric, “Anti-Hegemonic” Media Campaign in Response to Local TV Networks Anti-Government Bias

From Council of Hemispheric Affairs

In Venezuela, the war for the hearts and minds of its citizens is now in full swing. With the imminent launching of the government-sponsored Televisora del Sur (Telesur), network control of the country’s existing media, including Univisión and CNN en Español, might sorely be put to the test. According to plans, the network will start transmitting in late June or early July and will offer news and opinion programming 24 hours a day. For journalists now being recruited by Telesur, the creation of the network is long overdue. “Telesur's reason for being is the need to see Latin America with Latin American eyes,” said Aram Aharonian, its new director. “It's our right to have our own vision of what happens in Latin America, and not what Europeans or Americans, or whoever, tell us about how we are, who we are.”

It is hardly surprising that this new project is being launched by the Hugo Chávez administration. The Venezuelan leader has been particularly concerned with increasing his country’s political and cultural independence from Washington. From the very start, Chávez has had a stormy relationship with his powerful northern neighbor. Chávez, who immediately upon taking office in 1998 established close-working ties with Washington’s anathema, Cuban President Fidel Castro, criticized the U.S-led plan for a free trade zone in the Americas and was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq. As a result, he has long been reviled by the Bush administration. Tensions have been particularly bristling between the two nations ever since April 2002 when the democratically-elected Chávez was briefly removed from power in a coup. Chávez accused Washington of sponsoring his attempted overthrow as well as supporting a devastating oil lockout in 2002-2003. He also bluntly referred to the United States as “an imperialist power” and accused the CIA of having plans to assassinate him. In a further barb, Chávez declared that if he were killed the United States could “forget Venezuelan oil.”

Early TV Media Hostility toward Chávez

Within Venezuela’s volatile political environment, the role of the media has often proved critical and Chávez’s relations with the established networks have been turbulent since the 1998 election. Venezuela’s main TV stations were owned by powerful billionaire businessmen such as Gustavo Cisneros. The Cisneros Group includes Univisión Communications and Venevisión. Cisneros, whose net worth in 2003 was estimated at $4 billion, personally sits on the board of Univisión. The media magnate counts among his friends former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. What is more, according to Venezuelan human rights lawyer Eva Golinger, the links between the U.S. government and Venezuelan media go far beyond mere personal friendships. She explained that the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy and US AID haveprovided several millions of dollars to private media outlets in Venezuela to help finance their anti-Chávez campaign.

Cisneros, a tireless proponent of hemispheric free trade and globalization, quickly fell afoul of Chávez. The Venezuelan president has tenaciously criticized Washington’s Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). In return, Cisneros denounced Chávez for “arrogant abuse of power and authority.” Chávez also has been at odds with Marcel Granier, owner of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). When Chávez first came to power, Granier said, many privately-owned TV stations favored him. “But little by little,” he told Union Radio, “anti-democratic actions, violating the rule of law, attacks on journalists and attacks against the media have created the current situation. Venezuelan media are very concerned by the systematic and repeated violation of human rights.” In 2004, Granier and Cisneros controlled more than 60 percent of the television market in Venezuela.

Media and the Coup of 2002

During the dramatic days leading up to the April 2002 coup d’etat, Venevisión, RCTV, Globovisión and Televen substituted their regular programming with non-stop vitriolic anti-Chávez propaganda, which some of their staff later acknowledged as unprofessional behavior. This relentless barrage was interrupted by commercials sponsored by the oil industry management urging TV viewers to go into the streets. Inflammatory ads blaring, “Not one step backward. Out! Leave now!” were carried by the stations as public service announcements. Later on the day of the coup, Cisneros allowed his television station Venevision to serve as the meeting place for anti-Chávez coup plotters. Reportedly, interim coup president Pedro Carmona was present. As armed confrontations erupted in the streets of Caracas the anti-Chávez media edited video clips to give the impression that pro-Chávez forces were purportedly firing on unarmed civilians. However, according to journalist Greg Palast, who spoke to witnesses unaffiliated with either faction, “The shooting began from a roadway overpass controlled by the anti-Chávez Metropolitan Police, and the first to fall were pro-Chávez demonstrators.” After three days of anti-government protests, Venezuelan authorities interrupted the transmission of six TV stations to broadcast a message by President Chávez. In the middle of the speech, the private channels, which had broadcasted little if any coverage of pro-Chávez demonstrations, divided the screen to continue covering anti-government protests. Irritated by the media’s decision, Chávez ordered that the private channels be temporarily closed down and accused them of conspiring to overthrow the government.

TV under the Coup

By the following morning, Chávez had been deposed and the new—if short lived—regime now turned the tables on the flow of information. After Chávez’s fall, the coup leaders appeared on TV thanking the media for its assistance. For their part, the stations cheered Chávez’s “resignation.” However, after huge numbers of pro-Chávez supporters had been mobilized and were marching downtown, the media imposed a news blackout. Instead, the media broadcasted non-stop soap operas and cartoons. Meanwhile, during the brief Carmona regime, the government-sponsored Venezolana de Television was taken off the air when police forces loyal to Carmona occupied the Chávez loyalist station. Independent TV stations such as Catia TV and TV Caricuao reported that their offices were raided by pro-coup police who detained their staff, and confiscated their equipment.

The Boomerang Effect

According to authoritative Venezuela analyst Greg Wilpert, “The community media were faster and got the message out before they were all closed down. The alternative media’s broadcasting of the resistance caused it to snowball and to become increasingly active and eventually unstoppable.” Venezolana de Television later resumed broadcasting when sympathizers of the regime returned to their old positions. Far from intimidating Chávez, media attacks only served to embolden the Venezuelan president who charged that the commercial media was engaged in “psychological terrorism.” Chávez singled out Cisneros as a 'coup-plotter' and a “fascist.”

After the coup government was overturned, Chávez came to recognize the importance of community media. The government soon sat down with representatives of this sector and granted permits to many new, limited-range TV broadcasters, primarily operating in the central and western region of the country. In a further controversial move, Chávez seized broadcasting equipment from the 24-hour television news station Globovision. The move did not take Globovision off the air but the network was unable to broadcast live links to its reporters. The authorities claimed that Globovision was transmitting on illegal frequencies and that the seizure was not motivated by politics, but rather by existing regulations.

In a further sign that the political wind was shifting against the established media, some reporters even quit their jobs. One well known journalist, Andrés Izarra, resigned as production manager of El Observador, a news show broadcast over Granier’s RCTV. Izarra, who had previous journalistic experience with CNN, declared “I resigned because the station imposed an editorial line from the top down which censored all information related to chavismo. It was prohibited to show anyone affiliated with chavismo on the screen.” In a dramatic shift of careers, Izarra, after handling communications for Chávez’s embassy in Washington, now works as Chávez’s minister of communications and information.

Media and the Oil Lockout

Not to be outdone, anti-Chávez forces organized a lockout in 2002-2003. Again, the role of the media was critical. According to Golinger, “The four primary [TV] stations suspended all regular programming throughout the duration [of the lockout]. They broadcast an average of 700 pro-opposition advertisements each day, paid for by the stations themselves and by the opposition umbrella group, Democratic Coordinator.” Though the lockout failed to dislodge President Chávez, it proved devastating to the economy and resulted in an estimated $14 billion loss to the nation. After the lockout, three private TV stations were ordered to pay $2 million in taxes for allegedly providing free advertising to anti-Chávez forces. RCTV’s Marcel Granier described the government’s clampdown as a 'grotesque' assault on freedom of expression. Chávez meanwhile referred to the high profile businessmen who owned the TV stations as the “four horsemen of the apocalypse.” Despite this inflammatory rhetoric, a recent article published by the U.S. Newspapers Guild pointed out that no television station owners or managers had been prosecuted or lost their broadcasting licenses in Venezuela.

State Supported Media: Venezolana de Television

The established TV media lost journalistic credibility during the April coup. In calling for the nation to rise up in opposition to Chávez, the TV stations displayed blatant political partisanship. However, state-supported media has been just as biased. Chávez regularly – perhaps excessively— has been known to commandeer the airwaves, including the private networks, to deliver pro-government speeches at prime time. The president, for example, has made full use of Channel 8, Venezolana de Television. Though the public network boasts a broad range of cultural, children’s and musical programming, it also transmits the president’s own TV show, “Alo, Presidente.” On his Sunday program, the colorful Chávez may belt out Tango-inspired songs along with traditional Venezuelan folkloric tunes, when he is not using the time to air his political views. On one program in February 2003, Chávez warned the international community, in particular Colombia, Spain and the United States, to cease intervening in Venezuelan affairs. The next day bombs exploded at the Spanish and Colombian embassies and the U.S. embassy was shut down for 24 hours following a security alert. The opposition accused Chávez of inciting the attacks over his “Alo, Presidente” program. However, in February 2005, the anti-Chávez former National Guard General Felipe Rodriguez, known as “the Crow,” was charged with masterminding the bombings. Despite this controversy, Venezolana de Television’s audience share of the market was less than 2 percent last year. To compete with theprivate TV stations the government stated that it would invest $56 million in state-run TV.

State Supported Media: Vive TV

Another state sponsored station, Vive TV, which was launched in November 2003, promotes “participatory democracy, solidarity and Latin American integration.” Until January, the president of Vive TV was Blanca Eekhout who cut her teeth as a founding member and director of Catia TV, a local pro-Chavez TV station based in Catia on the outskirts of Caracas. She says that in the early days of Vive TV it became clear that “people didn’t just want to see new programming, they wanted to make it.” Accordingly, adds Eekhout, the station conducted workshops which taught camera work to community residents. “People from campesino and other movements came to make their own programs.” The station, maintains the manager, is “based on a new communications paradigm established by the political, social and economic model of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” and broadcasts its cultural, educational, and informational programs for the public good. In late 2004, Vive TV beamed to 60-70 percent of the Venezuelan population, including Caracas and various other states, but not the entire countryside. In contrast to TV stations like RCTV, which airs shows such as “Quien Quiere Ser Millionario” (“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire“), Vive TV shuns American-style consumerism. According to its website, Vive TV promotes “the common citizen, the millions of Venezuelans and Latin Americans who have been made invisible by imperialism and its cultural domination.” Through Vive’s programming, claim the station’s managers, “it is possible to acquaint oneself with the reality, lives and struggle of people of African descent, indigenous peoples, campesinos, workers, women, men, young people and children.” As Eekhout further explains, people of color previously “have appeared in the media but in a stigmatized way; they are shown as marginal people, criminals. They are not shown building, constructing, which is part of the struggle for the development of the country. That’s one thing we are trying to change.” Eekhout adds that Vive strives to act as a bridge for Latin America. Ironically, she says, many Venezuelans are more familiar with TV images of the United States than Latin America. Accordingly, Vive TV sets aside time slots for Latin American documentaries and cinema. What is more, Vive TV dedicated 4 hours of programming in one week to the Social Forum of the Americas in Ecuador. According to Eekhout, Venezuelan Indians attended the event and “The [Venezuelan] indigenous movement was excited; they could see not only movements there, but also their own Venezuelan delegates.”

Analysis of Vive TV

The question however is whether Vive TV is truly independent or simply tows the line. On Vive’s website, viewers may watch videos from “Diario de Las Misiones,” which shows how ordinary Venezuelans have benefited from a government program called Las Misiones, which encourages job creation and provides education, health, and food to underprivileged members of society. However, other programming does not overtly tout government initiatives. For example, one TV report from Noticiero de Los Trabajadores shows workers at Venepal, the principal paper company in the country, located in Carabobo state. When the owners halted production in September 2004, workers grew concerned for their economic future. In the video, there is no reportorial narration and the workers speak for themselves. One worker, who hardly seems to act as a Chávez regime mouthpiece, lists worker grievances at the plant and asks for the government to address local problems. In another video shot for Noticiero de Los Trabajadores, a resident of the municipality of Monagas speaks of the lack of public health infrastructure. Despite the fact that Monagas is located in the state of Anzoategui, site of a recent oil development, the resident claims that over the last ten years there has been a lack of government attention to the area. Though the health coverage has improved, he says, this has only come about through popular pressure.

Roll Over Al-Jazeera

Seen against the backdrop of these media developments, the emergence of Telesur hardly comes as a great surprise. Speaking on his television show, “Aló, Presidente,” Chávez remarked that Telesur will be “a hemispheric, audiovisual means of communication that shall broadcast the real vision of social and cultural diversity in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Telesur, which is scheduled to operate as an affiliate of state-sponsored Venezolana de Television, plans to showcase documentaries, movies and some entertainment programming. However, the network will place strong emphasis on informative content which shall account for 40 percent of all programming. Telesur will have correspondents in the United States, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and possibly Peru or Bolivia. Currently, Telesur has about 20 employees. By the time the network is fully staffed and launched, however, that number should grow to 60. In stark contrast to Univisión celebrity anchor Jorge Ramos, who wears a jacket and tie, Telesur has hired anchor woman Ati Kiwa, an indigenous Colombian woman who wears traditional dress. According to Aharonian, the governing board of the company is comprised of “journalists, communicators and people from the Latin American audiovisual world.” The international directorate is comprised of the president, Andrés Izarra; Aram Aharonian, who is the station’s general director; Ana de Escalom, of Channel 7 Buenos Aires; Beto Almeida of Brazil’s journalist guild; Ovidio Cabrera, ex-vice-president of Cuba’s Radio TV; and Jorge Enrique Botero of Colombia, the station’s director of information. Aharonian adds that none of these individuals, except for Izarra, officially represents the government’s point of view.

Financing Telesur

So far, the Venezuelan government state has contributed $2.5 million to the network. Organizers have sought out sponsors, but in sharp contrast to Cisneros’ Univisión, Telesur will offer no commercial advertising. Although, adds Aharonian, “therewill be advertisements from private and public institutions, with such sponsors having nothing to do with the editorial line.” Significantly, Argentina has joined the effort and today Telesur represents a joint venture involving Venezuela and Argentina. Additionally, Telesur has concluded an agreement to share material with TV Brasil, a state run company. Uruguay, which recently elected left-leaning president Tabaré Vasquez, has agreed to cover 10 percent of the new enterprises’ initial costs. According to Izarra, Telesur is the first example of a continental-wide station owned jointly by a number of governments. For President Bush, the concern must certainly be that this new “anti-hegemonic” network, as its managers are wont to describe it, could turn into the Al Jazeera of South America. Telesur has in fact recently signed a cooperation agreement with Al Jazeera, which has been heavily subsidized by the Qatar government. Under the agreement, Al Jazeera will expand its coverage of Latin America and open a central office in Caracas. The Caracas office will in turn receive Al Jazeera reports filed from Argentina and Brazil.

The Politics of Telesur

Not surprisingly, Telesur is not without its detractors. Principal among them is Jorge Ramos, the TV anchor at Cisneros’ Univisión, who also mounts his attacks against Chávez from his personal website (www.jorgeramos.com). In his article entitled “Telesur o TeleChávez,” Ramos writes that creating continental-wide media is a legitimate goal. However, he adds, “I am very worried that Telesur will become…an international megaphone for Hugo Chávez and his interminable speeches…Chávez already controls almost everything in Venezuela: the assembly, the constitution, the supreme court and the army. And Telesur could expand, without controls, his international agenda.” Of course, his critics say that Ramos has had little to say about the extent to which Univisión and Ramos himself have become mouthpieces for Cisneros.

At the helm of the network, the 59-year-old Aharonian says it is time to wage “an ideological fight.” Incensed by the biases and shortcomings of mainstream TV coverage of foreign events, he comments that “commercial TV tells us today that there is a liberating coalition in Iraq saving the Iraqis when we know it is a genocidal invasion.” It is time he says to “wage [a] battle in the mass field of television. Telesur was born from the conviction that in these days of great saturation television, it cannot be left in the hands of the enemy. The Venezuelan government has given great importance to community and alternative radio, but has left the mass media to the enemy.” Aharonian, an Uruguayan who has resided in Venezuela for several years, is also the director of Agencia Latinoamericana de Información y Análisis-Dos (Alia2) and the Caracas monthly newspaper Questión. According to its editors, Questión “sees world reality through a pluralistic vision, independent of the so-called process of liberal globalization.”

Caracas Assures that Telesur will be Independent

In an interesting article entitled “RR: Rhetoric or Reality?” published in the October issue of Questión, Aharonian sketched out his views concerning social and political changes in Venezuela. Though he is complimentary of Chávez’s accomplishments in the fields of health and education, he writes that the regime must do more to encourage participatory democracy in order to give more power to the poor. In another recent article, published in the wake of Chávez’s November victory in regional elections, Aharonian writes that Chávez must give up his confrontational politics and start to govern. “The reality,” he writes, “is that the climate of confrontation that Venezuela experienced for years encouraged a situation in which many governors and mayors elected under the Chávez banner are really not suitable for governance, they don’t have experience in politics or public administration.” When pressed, Aharonian insists that Telesur will be completely independent. What is more, Aharonian asks why more people do not voice similar concerns about the independence of private TV media. In an echo of Vive TV, he remarked to the Mexican daily La Jornada, “We will focus on doing the opposite of commercial television. We will search out the protagonist role of social movements, people, communities, and towns.”

Aharonian is joined by Botero who has worked as head of current affairs programming for Caracol Television network. The Colombian journalist has produced two documentaries, “Como voy a Olvidarte” (How Will I Forget You) and “Bacano salir en Diciembre” about kidnapped victims of the FARC guerrillas in Colombia. He won the Premio Nuevo Periodismo (New Journalism Award) for both.

In his native Colombia, Botero fell afoul of the U.S.-supported armed forces. In 1997, FARC leader Alfonso Cano offered him a rare television interview. Later, Botero says, senior army officials labeled him as a rebel sympathizer. In 2000, when his network aired some of Botero’s footage showing captive police and soldiers held by the FARC in jungle camps, the journalist received multiple death threats. Botero’s bosses told him “it was not convenient” to air a new series of documentaries. He was relieved of his duties at the station but not dismissed. Botero later sent his family abroad and moved out of his Bogotá apartment. As an employee at Telesur, Botero must surely hope that he will be able to forget the repressive atmosphere in Colombia. Speaking with the Associated Press, Botero commented that Telesur will broadcast less U.S. focused news and more from the “voices of new social and political sectors” in Latin America that have been historically ignored. He added, “A one hour slot is already scheduled during which the communities themselves will report what they have to say.” Botero also makes the point that in addition to Telesur correspondents, he wants to develop a network of journalistic collaborators. “We want to contract independent media that have outstanding editorial lines to be the station’s base of operations in their respective countries.”

Looking to the Future

The debate over TV media and its role in Venezuela will not end any time soon. What is certain, however, is that Chávez is now in a much more stable situation politically than he was in 2002. Having consolidated power, he may now spearhead continental-wide media and promote South American unity. “For the first time in the history of Venezuela,” comments Aharonian, “the earnings of petroleum are reaching the people and the surpluses have given the opportunity to promote this Latin American project of communicational integration.” Such developments are of great concern to Washington, which appears incapable comprehending the extraordinary transformations now occurring in the region.

--Nikolas Kozloff is a COHA Senior Research Fellow.

Darfur Crisis Continues: Intervention Sought

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 01:30:00 +0000

4-29-05, 9:14 am

Arbitrary arrest, torture and killings continue in the Darfur region of the Sudan, human rights advocates report, despite a negotiated peace settlement, international condemnation, and plans for a UN peacekeeping intervention. People who did return to their homes after peace agreements were announced and international attention focused on Darfur promised to stop the violence, did so 'without adequate food, or proper health and education services,' reports the IRIN news agency.

Food and water shortages are compounded by exposure to weather, poor access to health care, and overpopulation due to the presence of tens of thousands of displaced persons. World Health Organization experts estimate that infant mortality in the southern parts of the Sudan, where the conflict has been mainly focused, is about 20 percent higher than in the north.

While humanitarian problems have received some attention, atrocities seem to have slipped under the radar. The Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT) reports that from mid-March into late April, arrests and torture by Sudanese government officials aimed at people they believe to be supporters of the political opposition continued.

SOAT reported kidnappings and beatings by military intelligence in Nyala in Southern Darfur of refugee men suspected of aiding the Sudan Liberation Army. SOAT described the arrests as 'arbitrary' and the use of torture as 'systematic.'

SOAT also reported that despite the UN’s condemnation of the Janjaweed’s activities, it continued its operations as well. Members of the Zaghawa tribe in Nyala, Darfur were kidnapped, beaten, and shot to death by Janjaweed forces at a government military camp.

At least one victim who was not killed was brought to a Sudanese military camp where he was tortured and charged with supporting the political opposition and handed over to the police. These events show the continuing cooperation between the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government – even after the UN Security Council condemned the atrocities in Darfur.

Just days after these events, SOAT reports, on April 7th a Janjaweed band of about 200 attacked and looted the Hejair Tono Village in Nyala, Darfur. A number of civilians were killed and wounded. One wounded man was later arrested by government security officers and has been held in custody without charges.

In mid-April, the Sudan Human Rights Organization publicized secret military trials of Sudanese military officials who apparently were arrested, possibly tortured, detained without access to lawyers, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment for sympathy for the victims of the mass killings of Darfurians. The trumped-up charges were that the imprisoned people were plotting to overthrow the government.

Continuing reports of atrocities and humanitarian crisis has led some human rights activists in the US to call for urgent intervention 'in Darfur to protect the people and facilitate the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance.'

This view was adopted by Africa Action as it announced continued public protests against the failure to act to stop what it calls 'ongoing genocide in Darfur.' Africa Action predicts that as many as 1 million people may die by the end of the year without urgent and immediate intervention in support of the African Union’s operations.

--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

Venezuela: Washington Beating War Drums

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 01:20:00 +0000

4-29-05, 9:04 am

Washington Beating War Drums - Act Now, Defend the Venezuelan Revolution!

Hands Off Venezuela

On the eve of Condoleeza Rice's tour of Latin America, an extremely provocative article appeared yesterday in The New York Times.

Under the title of 'U.S. Considers Toughening Stance Toward Venezuela' and signed by Juan Forero, the article quotes a number of unnamed 'American officials' basically saying that 'the Bush administration is weighing a tougher approach, including funnelling more money to foundations and business and political groups opposed to his leftist government'.

Forero claims in his article that a 'multiagency task force in Washington has been working on shaping a new approach, one that high-ranking American policy makers say would most likely veer toward a harder line'. The article quotes another unnamed American official as saying: 'The conclusion that is increasingly being drawn in Washington is that a realistic, pragmatic relationship, in which we can agree to disagree on some issues but make progress on others, does not seem to be in the cards

(...) We offered them a more pragmatic relationship, but obviously if they do not want it, we can move to a more confrontational approach.'

Another 'high-ranking Republican aide on Capitol Hill who works on Latin America policy' (also unnamed) explains: 'What's happening here is they realize this thing is deteriorating rapidly and it's going to require some more attention (...) The current look-the-other-way policy is not working.'

The truth of the matter, however, is that the US administration has always had a 'tough' stance towards Venezuela. High-ranking United States officials met with Venezuelan opposition leaders in the weeks and days before the military coup that ousted Chavez for 47 hours on April 11, 2002. There is now hard evidence that the CIA knew that the coup was being plotted, and Washington was the first capital in the world to recognise the illegitimate government of Pedro Carmona which was installed by the coup.

The Bush administration supplied funds to opposition groups that organised the coup in 2002. It also funded the sabotage of the oil industry in December 2002 and January 2003, which cost the country's economy some 10,000 million dollars. It financed the attempt to remove Chavez through a recall referendum. It is difficult to see how Washington's stance towards the democratically elected government of Venezuela could actually get 'tougher' - short of direct military intervention.

Since the beginning of this year the barrage of accusations against the Venezuelan government by US officials has certainly increased in volume and intensity. The US has actively tried to stop the sale of weapons to Venezuela by Spain, Brazil and Russia (after the US itself refused to supply spare parts for Venezuela's ageing fleet of F16s), and has accused Venezuela of being a 'negative force in the region' (Condoleeza Rice). The US administration and media have stepped up a belligerent campaign against Venezuela.

The democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez has been accused of everything from linking up with North Korea, supplying arms to the Colombian FARC guerrillas and funding the 'subversive' MAS in Bolivia, to forming an axis of evil with Cuba's Castro, starting an arms race in Latin America, and harbouring Al-Qaeda terrorists. A recent article in the National Review (which appeared on April 11, the day of the third anniversary of the coup in Venezuela), carried the title 'Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez constitute an axis of evil'. In this extremely belligerent article, Otto Reich, until recently Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, openly advocated a policy of 'confronting' the 'emerging axis of subversion'.

There is no substance to any of these accusations, for which not the slightest shred of proof is offered. They are just meant to create an impression the kind of impression that can be used to justify an act of aggression. As we learned long ago from Josef Goebbels, even the most blatant lie, if it is repeated often enough, is taken to be the truth. In the same way, the lie that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction was used as an excuse for the criminal invasion of Iraq.

Everybody now knows that it was a lie, but at the time enough people believed it to permit a naked act of aggression to be presented as an act of national self-defence. Now history is being repeated.

When pressed for more details on the allegations about 'Venezuelan shortcomings with respect to the counter narcotics issue', Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman for the US Department of State, on March 30th, could not think of anything coherent to say. He merely mumbled: 'Not really. I'll look and see what we've said on the past, but off the top of my head I can't give you a detailed answer.' On such flimsy 'evidence' is the case for armed aggression against Venezuela being constructed in Washington.

There is no doubt that all these newspaper articles and statements do not appear just by chance. One has the feeling that they are part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign aimed not only at isolating Venezuela, but also at preparing US public opinion for more direct forms of intervention against the Bolivarian Revolution. The self-same methods were used in the past to justify US interventions against the Cuban Revolution, the Arbenz government in Guatemala, the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and more recently in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada and Haiti. The hired press pours out a stream of abuse and calumnies in order to soften up public opinion. Then the heavy squad moves in. In some circles, this is known as the 'freedom of the press'. Otto Reich would know about this. In the 1980s he was at the head of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD). This was nothing less than a propaganda outfit, which amongst other tasks coordinated the planting of editorial articles in newspapers openly backing the Contras and attacking those who criticised Washington's support for the murderous cut-throat gangs of thugs of the Contras in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra investigation found that Reich, a Cuban exile, had carried out 'prohibited, covert propaganda' on behalf of the Contras (the full declassified record of Otto Reich while involved in the OPD can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/).

But let's go back to Juan Forero's article. The only 'sources' he gives for this toughening of US policy towards Venezuela are all 'unnamed officials'. The day after the article was published in The New York Times, Washington issued a denial of its contents, but in fact it was a 'denial' that denied nothing. He said ''those are not reports that reflect any reality in terms of decisions by the United States to change its policy.'

So, in fact what he means is that there is no change in the US policy, which was already very confrontational before Forero was briefed by his famous 'unnamed officials'.

Forero's journalistic record in relation to Venezuela is at best shaky. On the day after the military coup in Venezuela he wrote an article for The New York Times which did not mention the word 'coup' once and had the amazing headline 'Venezuela Chief Forced to Resign; Civilian Installed'.

This sounds like a well-rehearsed pantomime and it works like this:

Washington leaks some disinformation it would like published to a friendly journalist. The material is published but no sources are quoted. Once the 'news' is already in the public domain and has been picked up by the major news agencies and outlets, then the State Department issues a 'denial' which is not reported anywhere. The damage has already been done.

It is clear that the US administration is increasingly hostile towards the Bolivarian revolution, which is standing firm against US imperialism.

George Bush is frustrated because all the attempts to smash it have failed. But the strategy of isolating Venezuela from other Latin American governments has also failed so far. Donald Rumsfeld's recent tour of the region was not at all successful in this respect. But these failures do not mean that Washington will abandon its aggressive stance towards Venezuela. On the contrary, it means that its aggression will be stepped up and acquire dangerous proportions if it is not halted by a massive movement of protest from below.

This renewed campaign against the Venezuelan revolution represents a serious threat, which the world labour movement will neglect at its peril.

In all previous occasions in which this kind of language has been used, it has always been the preparation for military intervention. Such interventions do not necessarily take the form of an actual invasion. The fact that the US army is bogged down in an unwinnable war in Iraq makes this a problematical option at this stage. But the examples of Chile and Nicaragua indicate that there are other options: a dirty war of terrorism and subversion, the assassination of President Chavez, provocations leading to war with Colombia, which the Pentagon has already turned into an armed camp. These and many other weapons are at the disposal of Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice.

All the warnings are present. The only force that can defeat the planned aggression against the Venezuelan Revolution is the international Labour Movement and the workers and the youth of the United States. It is time to sound the alarm! Venezuela is in danger! It is imperative that the workers, trade unionists, youth and students, intellectuals and artists, black and white, should unite to organize a protest movement so powerful that George Bush and the right wing gang in the White House are compelled to think again.

Let us not wait until it is too late. Let us act now to forestall this act of naked aggression of a powerful imperialist state against a South American country that is fighting for its most elementary rights: the right to national self-determination, the right to live its life in peace and to determine its own future without foreign interference, the right to build a society based on the principles of freedom, justice and equality.

This is the real reason why the most reactionary circles in the USA wish to destroy the Venezuelan Revolution: because it sets an example to the millions of poor and exploited people in the whole of Latin America.

Furthermore, this is the path that the Venezuelan people have democratically chosen. Chavez and his policies have been ratified in more than 7 electoral contests and referenda since he was first elected in 1998. This example is dangerous, not to the ordinary citizens of the United States, the workers and the poor, but to Wall Street, to the banks, the big corporations and the oil barons who are the real constituents of George W. Bush.

This right wing administration, which is trying to depict Venezuela as a 'danger to peace' because it is purchasing some rifles from Russia, is spending a staggering $500,000 million on arms every year. It is spending at least $6,000 million every month on the occupation of Iraq while slashing public expenditure on pensions and Medicare.

Let us act now! Reproduce this article, translate it and pass it on to as many people as possible. Pass resolutions of protest in your local trade union branch. Organize pickets, lobbies, rallies and demonstrations. The Hands Off Venezuela Campaign is preparing a major initiative for the First of May. Contact us now and join our fight against these criminal actions of the imperialists.

--Jorge Martín, Hands Off Venezuela Campaign,

U.S. Out of Iraq: Forum Features Conyers, Woolsey, Lee, Ellsberg

Sat, 30 Apr 2005 01:13:00 +0000

4-29-05, 8:58 am

A forum held in a US House of Representatives office building on April 28 brought together leaders of the movement to withdraw US troops from Iraq, including Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee, both California Democrats and Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Woolsey is the sponsor of , a resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops to begin immediately.

Woolsey and Lee only stayed for part of the forum, but their remarks made clear that they support the position of the events' organizer, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), http://www.ips-dc.org. They want to end the occupation, right away. Congressman John Conyers spoke as well and remained for the entire second panel of a two-session event, inviting participants up to his office afterward. While he began by expressing some ambivalence about immediate withdrawal, Conyers later said that he had found those who argued for it very persuasive. Other speakers included Daniel Ellsberg, who famously released the Pentagon Papers to the media during the Vietnam War, and Marcus Raskin and Carl LeVan, whose resumes include co-editorship of a new book called 'In Democracy's Shadow: The Secret World of National Security.' Other contributors to the book and leaders of the peace movement participated as well.

The full event will be aired on Free Speech TV and on various radio stations. The two panels are described here in reverse order.

PANEL 2:

Congressman Conyers opened the second panel and began with the idea that getting out of Iraq is going to be more difficult that getting out of Vietnam.

But Conyers quickly moved into discussing problems with the 'war on terrorism.' He said that very little attention was being paid to domestic terrorism, and that removing the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. opens a huge door for terrorists. 'The contradictions are ironic as always, but also really painful,' he said, 'because we're working against even our stated goals.'

Conyers said that his staff had been able to identify only four people who have been convicted of terrorism, and that he is not convinced the United States is trying to capture Osama Bin Laden.

Conyers spoke against the war, saying, 'The use of force to bring peace rarely ever works on a long-term basis.' But he warned that 'the day we move out [of Iraq] is the day anybody with mischief on their mind will move in.'

Conyers acknowledged that many believe the United States is the cause of much of the violence in Iraq. 'If we move out, much of the violence and terror will abate. I hope that's true and that I can be persuaded of it.'

While uncertain as to what should be done, Conyers was clear about what was needed: a people's movement. That, he said, was what ended the war on Vietnam. 'I want to invent a way to do it without using dates,' he said, arguing that setting dates had not worked in the case of Vietnam.

Next to speak was Daniel Ellsberg, who said 'Is Iraq different from Vietnam? Of course it is. It's a dry heat. And the language we don't speak is Arabic.' But, Ellsberg pointed out, the language spoken by our collaborators, such as Ahmad Chalabi [now appointed to head the oil ministry] is English, just as in Vietnam.

Ellsberg said that Americans are seen by everyone in Iraq, and correctly, as foreign occupiers, but that Americans don't realize that – as they didn't in Vietnam. Because we could not see that, he said, we had no better chance to ever win in Vietnam than did the French or the Japanese or the Chinese before them. 'That is true in Iraq now.'

The elections failed to bring the Sunnis into the process, Ellsberg said.

'Americans will be dying and killing in Iraq as long as they are there. The question is how long will that be?'

In Vietnam, 'Nixon kept the [American] people with him by a continuous hoax that he was in the process of leaving Vietnam.' That was never the intention, Ellsberg said. 'He foresaw a permanent military presence in Vietnam.' Nixon was forced to give that up, according to Ellsberg, by the public, by Congress cutting off the funds, and by luck (including the revelations of Watergate).

'It will be much harder and longer to get out of Iraq,' Ellsberg said, because of the oil and because of the US alliance with Israel. 'It is hard for me to foresee when we will leave the oil of the Middle East to people who are not our collaborators.'

It will take a long time to get out, Ellsberg predicted, whether under Republicans or Democrats. But it is not too soon to start talking about the need to get out, he said. Woolsey's resolution is important, he said, not because it will be passed by a majority anytime soon, but because if we are ever to get out or to avoid additional wars, we have to see clearly that it's better for us and for the Iraqis for us to leave.

This is true, Ellsberg warned, not because the future will be peaceful and free of problems after the US troops leave, but because as long as we stay, 'the people we choose to be collaborators will be targets of terrorism.' We unify the resistance forces, he said. 'And that precludes the possibility of a peaceful Iraq.'

People who call for getting out now, Ellsberg cautioned, will be called defeatists, appeasers, weaklings, losers, cowards, and pro-terrorist. The opposite is true, he said. The war strengthens terrorists.

We must, Ellsberg advise, find the courage to stand up and be willing to be called cowards and defeatists. He praised those congress members who have signed H Con Res 35, and he solicited a round of applause for Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who cast the sole vote in Congress against allowing the president to decide to attack Afghanistan.

Although she stood alone on that vote, Ellsberg said, she and Woolsey and Congressman Dennis Kucinich stood with 132 congress members and 22 senators in voting against the war on Iraq. Senators Byrd and Kennedy, Ellsberg said, expressed shame at that time for having voted for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, sending troops to war in Vietnam on the basis of a lie. They urged their colleagues not to make the same mistake.

Ellsberg urged those present to find the courage take that kind of stand.

Following Ellsberg, Woolsey and Lee spoke, in turn. The forum took place on the 15th anniversary of the creation of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which they co-chair, and which they are currently making plans to strengthen by hiring a director.

Congresswoman Woolsey said that she had looked to Conyers for leadership since she arrived in Congress, since the days when there were over 100 reliable progressive votes to these days when that number is under 50. (Thirty-three have co-sponsored her resolution on ending the war.)

Woolsey said that she had been against the war from the start, and that she had for a time accepted the idea that pulling troops out of Iraq would mean abandoning the people of that country. But, she said, the voters of Iraq said they went to the polls because they wanted to end the occupation.

Over 1,000 US soldiers have been killed since Bush declared 'mission accomplished' she said, while hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and wounded. 'And we cannot count the number of our troops who have been mentally and physically wounded. And we're doing nothing in this Congress to make things better for them, because we're going to deny it.'

Picking up on Ellsberg's comments, Woolsey declared, 'I don't care what label anybody puts on me. The best way to support our troops is to bring them home!'

Insurgents are given an excuse for killing by our presence, Woolsey said. 'We have to internationalize this,' she said, not so that the rest of the world can help the United States, but so that they can show the United States that there is a better way – 'without the U.S. thinking that the Iraqi oil belongs to us.' Bush claimed a couple of weeks ago that 150,000 Iraqis have been trained and equipped, Woolsey said. 'If so, then what are we doing there?'

Woolsey said that three new congress members had co-sponsored her resolution this week, one of whom complained that his constituents had cornered him and left him no choice. Another told her that he'd received 3,000 communications from his constituents asking him to sign onto the bill.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke next and said that, as a member of the International Relations Committee, she was concerned that our only foreign policy is a military policy, and that it includes preemption. She said she and others had introduced a resolution to repeal the use of preemption, and that Bush's policies had made the world a more dangerous place.

Over 60 – 65 percent of our resources are going into military spending, Lee said, much of it wasted on Cold War weapons and build-up of the military-industrial complex. Meanwhile we are cutting school funding.

'Can you imagine what good we could do just with the $300 billion spent on this war?'

Lee said that she and Woolsey want to use the Progressive Caucus inside Congress to help build a multi-racial progressive movement outside Congress. She encouraged those present to work with them to build that inside-outside strategy.

Next to speak was Phyllis Bennis of IPS, who began by saying that Congressman Conyers might be right that it would be more difficult to get out of Iraq than it was to get out of Vietnam, but that we still had to do it, and that we already had a majority of Americans believing the war was a mistake – something that took much longer in the case of Vietnam.

The best way to end the occupation, Bennis said repeatedly, is to end the occupation. 'Nothing else will end the violence and killing....The US troops have become the problem, not the solution.' They do not receive most of the casualties, she said, because they are harder to reach. But with 70 percent unemployment, Iraqis desperate for work are lining up in hopes of finding some, and they are being targeted as collaborators. They are dying because they are easier to reach than the US soldiers.

'We owe Iraq an enormous debt,' Bennis said, for the war and for the sanctions that killed even more people. 'We owe reparations.'

Bennis also cited the need for the National Guard back here in the nation, where the Governor of Montana has requested that those from his state be sent home to be available to fight forest fires.

She also pointed to the need for money in this country, and the need for work and income among Iraqis. They should get the jobs, she said, not mercenaries. 'Don't call them contract workers. They're mercenaries.' This argument will be made in June when six leaders of Iraqi labor unions and federations tour the United States. http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org

International support is nearly gone, Bennis said, citing Italy's move to withdraw troops.

International respect is gone as well. 'The whole world knows the war was illegal,' Bennis said, citing a statement by Kofi Annan and the recent revelation of a memo in the UK warning of possible illegality prior to the war.

Patrick Resta, an Iraq war veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, spoke as well, focusing his comments on the poor job the United States is doing of training Iraqis.

Joe Volk, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, also spoke, and argued that Congress should, as a first step, consider a simple resolution expressing the intent to withdraw from Iraq, without specifying when. This, he thought, would force those congress members who want to remain in Iraq permanently to say so out loud, which in turn would inspire anti-war activism among their constituents. http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/index.htm

The final speaker was Eric Leaver of IPS who said that 'immediate withdrawal' would take 6 months to a year, but that it must be done, because 'The US has a deadly version of the Midas' touch.' Those who work with the occupiers are tainted.

Leaver recommended that the United States:

1)      immediately decrease the number of troops in Iraq, and cease all offensive operations, pull troops out of major cities and move some to the borders

2)      declare that the United States has no intention to maintain a long-term presence or bases in Iraq

3)      hand reconstruction services over to the Iraqis, helping to stem the high unemployment

Leaver recommended setting a timetable for full withdrawal, because the Sunnis have said that they would negotiate and become part of the government on that condition. In the meantime, he favored having training of Iraqis handled by the State Department, as is the norm, rather than by Defense Department private contractors, as is the case in Iraq now.

Leaver said that exit polls found 82 percent of Sunnis and 69 percent of Shiites want the US out. 'Withdrawal should be the first step in a long commitment to this country,' he concluded.

Congressman Conyers spoke again briefly to thank all the speakers and to say that he had remained through the entire panel because, 'I was riveted by the logic.'

PANEL 1:

Prior to that panel, there had been another on a broader range of topics:

Raskin, co-founder of IPS, spoke first and provided some historical context. Following World War II, he said, there was a period of about a year in which the United States championed the idea of a war crimes tribunal, the idea of personal responsibility for war. But that notion lost out to the Cold War, he said. Then in 1973-74, 39 members of Congress sponsored a bill toward that end, to internalize within the United States, as Raskin put it, the model of Nuremburg. But the departments of defense and state objected, and the bill did not make it out of subcommittee.

Raskin urged impeachment of Bush and legal action against him and recommended to Congressman Conyers that he think in terms of impeachment, and to others that we bring cases in federal court, even if they'll lose.

Norman Birnbaum, author and professor at Georgetown University, spoke about a 'Foreign Policy Intellectual Complex' that he sees paralleling the work of the military industrial complex, by promoting militarism through universities, publicists, and centers of research. Birnbaum referred favorably to a letter that anti-war leader Tom Hayden recently sent to Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean opposing Dean's support for continuing the occupation. Progressive Democrats of America is collecting signatures on a petition to Dean at http://www.pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-exit-petition.php

Jeffrey Lewis, a research fellow at the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Maryland and editor of www.armscontrolwonk.com, discussed the Moscow Treaty, signed by Bush and Putin. Lewis said that, contrary to Bush's claim, this treaty does not 'liquidate the legacy of the Cold War,' but maintains the Cold War obsession with deterrence. The treaty limits the United States and Russia to 1,700 – 2,200 offensive nuclear weapons, includes no verification procedures, and actually takes effect the same day it expires, December 31, 2012. In addition, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has testified that reductions required by the treaty will not be met unless full funding is appropriated for the Nuclear Posture Review.

That Review, Lewis said, helps show that China is now 'supplanting Russia as the primary target of US nuclear planning.' If the United States drops below 2,200 weapons, Rumsfeld has said, China will 'sprint to parity' – from the approximately 100 weapons it has now. On the contrary, according to Lewis, the new US policy will encourage China to develop weapons, not deter it.

Miriam Pemberton of IPS discussed Rumsfeld's hiring of consultant Gary Anderson to devise metrics for measuring the overall success of overt and covert actions, economic actions, and the 'winning of hearts and minds.'

'Where have we heard that before?' Pemberton asked. Anderson's report to Rumsfeld noted that using the phrase 'global war on terror' might prejudice the tactics chosen toward more martial actions. Pemberton seconded that sentiment, saying 'Terrorism is a serious problem, but it is not one that is solvable by military force.'

In fact, she said, the State Department will no longer produce an annual report on terrorism, because terrorism is increasing. So, Rumsfeld will try to measure success in fighting terrorism while avoiding the most obvious measure: whether there is more or less terrorism.

Pemberton has a proposal on the IPS website at http://ips-dc.org to shift funding from military approaches toward diplomacy. The trend in recent years has been so far in the other direction, she said, that we are spending nine times as much money on military operations as on all non-military relations.

Pemberton noted that during the Cold War, that war was used as the justification for funding education and technology. 'Now that the Cold War is over,' she said, 'isn't there any other purpose than national security that can mobilize our resources for a public purpose, such as building an environmentally sustainable economy?' – a project that some would argue is central to making the nation more secure, even if totally foreign to the Bush-Administration-Media-Complex's notion of 'national security.'

SIGN THIS PETITION:

TELL YOUR CONGRESS MEMBER TO CO-SPONSOR THIS RESOLUTION:

--David Swanson is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. His website is http://www.davidswanson.org.

Social Security and Iraq War: Bush's Public Relations is Falling Apart

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 01:27:00 +0000

4-28-05, 9:11 am

While President Bush continues his taxpayer funded tour to try to soften stubborn and growing opposition to his Social Security privatization plan, his handlers decided that bringing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is under pressure to resign his position due to charges of influence peddling, would help boost his public image.

It isn't clear yet what effect Bush's high profile association with DeLay will have. Will it cultivate the appearance that Bush is willing to overlook corruption for political gain? Or will it add to DeLay's misery by associating with a president that more than half of Americans simply don't view as credible? Whitewashing the truth with less than believable claims that the whole mess was an 'intelligence failure' simply hasn't convinced most people that the administration is above responsibility for taking us into the wrong war at the wrong time.

A wave of revelations about the administration's failure to uphold international conventions and treaties against the use of torture, increasing numbers of terrorists attacks globally, and the US's tarnished international image add fuel to anti-war sentiment.

Further, after two years and over $166 billion dollars spent with tens of billions more on the way, according to the National Priorities Project (NPP), taxpayers are wondering what happened.

Public school closings, public hospital closings, public transportation cuts, and elimination and cuts in public services across the board are making Americans angrier everyday.

They see the diminishment of their standards of living as directly related to the financial mess created by a war that the Bush administration lied to get us into.

According to NPP, over 2.8 million public school teachers could have been hired with the money spent on the war so far. Health insurance for more than 99 million children could have been fully funded for one year. Environmental cleanup, anti-poverty programs, job training programs, health research investment, job creation investments and more are on the chopping block because of a war that was supposed to have paid for itself and have ended within weeks.

Even further, military families are expressing their anger at the outcome of Bush's war. Military Families Speak Out is an organization that holds community meetings and town halls demanding their family members be returned to them. Gold Star Families for Peace, an organization of families of fallen soldiers, is also speaking out to limit any further human cost of Bush’s war.

Increased periods of military service in a country where the war was supposed to have ended almost two years ago are tearing families apart. Deaths, battle-related and accidental, totaling close to 1,600, too, are destroying families. Wounds, injuries, and disease incurred in Iraq have affected over 25,000 service members, according to GlobalSecurity.org and recently released figures from the Veterans' Administration.

Mounting Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from a war initiated by lies is also a serious concern for Americans who prioritize human rights as a motivation for their support for any foreign policy goal. According to the British journal The Lancet as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have been killed in the war so far.

While the Pentagon has denied that it keeps a body count of civilians killed (a denial viewed with great skepticism by many observers and former Pentagon insiders), IraqiBodyCount.net, a website that, using media, eyewitness, and government reports, estimates that as many as 24,106 Iraqi civilians are known to have been killed as a result of the war.

So Bush can canoodle Saudi princes and mollycoddle DeLay and ignore public opinion all he wants. It isn't too early to pronounce his administration a failure based on its 'accomplishments' so far.

The main question is what can the majority of Americans do to stop him from further destructive acts. Public pressure on Republican and Democratic elected officials to block Social Security privatization and to end the war in Iraq, along with firing at least 15 Republican members of the House of Representatives and 4 Republican Senators in the 2006 mid-term elections are good places to start.

--Joel Wendland can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

A blind eye to torture

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 01:03:00 +0000

4-28-05, 8:48 am

From Morning Star

A YEAR after the world was revolted by the publication of photographs detailing the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, top US military and political leaders remain unpunished.

A handful of low-ranking US troops have been served up as scapegoats to deflect the blame from such people as Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez.

Mr Rumsfeld has had overall political charge of the illegal invasion and the occupation, while Lt-Gen Sanchez was the top military commander in Iraq.

The US defence secretary is up to his neck in the scandal, having approved, as far back as December 2002, such techniques as hooding, stripping naked, prolonged isolation, use of dogs, loud music, light control and sensory deprivation as suitable means of interrogating detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

These practices then spread to both Iraq and Afghanistan at his behest.

In April 2003, Mr Rumsfeld codified these methods, which were adopted in September of that year by Lt-Gen Sanchez for use in Abu Ghraib.

But while private soldiers and sergeants have been banged up for treating prisoners badly, the top brass have operated with impunity. Indeed, Lt-Gen Sanchez and three other senior officers were cleared of wrongdoing by a high-level internal military investigation last week.

In response, the US-based campaign Human Rights Watch has urged the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the roles of Mr Rumsfeld, Lt-Gen Sanchez and former CIA director George Tenet in this carnival of abuse. No-one should hold their breath, because, just as the US ruling elite has united to frustrate investigation of those ultimately responsible for torture, so too are Washington's political allies in Europe.

At last week's meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, a Cuban proposal that commission staff should look into the serious human rights charges made against the US government regarding Guantanamo was kicked out.

Eight countries voted in favour, with 22 against and 23 abstaining, in light of the usual US pressure on weaker states.

However, what made matters worse was the collective decision to oppose Cuba's motion that was taken by the member states of the European Union.

A year ago, the EU prevailed on Havana not to put a similar motion, but, since then, copious evidence has emerged of the goings-on behind Guantanamo's fences. Even the toothless European Parliament voted six months ago to ask EU countries to present their own resolution on this issue.

And this is the same EU that votes each year to keep the human rights situation in Cuba under review, doing Washington's dirty work for it.

Faced with a choice between upsetting the Bush administration or defending human rights, the hypocritical EU snubbed justice and world public opinion in favour of brown-nosing Uncle Sam.

Any subsequent pompous posturing by Brussels over human rights anywhere will be devalued by this shameful surrender to Washington.

American democracy or American arbitrariness?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 01:00:00 +0000

4-28-05, 8:44 am

Is it American democracy or American arbitrariness? From People's Daily Online

'Rose Revolution'', 'Orange Revolution'', 'Lemon Revolution'': Within a short period of time the political powers of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have changed colors. The ruling parties in these countries failed in general elections while the opposition parties seized the powers. 'Color revolution'' makes people dazzling. Fling the internal political situations in these countries away it is the indispensable operation behind the scenes manipulated by the United States that the 'color revolution'' can succeed in the countries. The US government does not deny this, showing self-satisfaction. But knowledgeable people point out, there are three deadly weak points for the 'democratic offensive'' the Bush administration has launched.

First, the motive that the Bush administration 'exports democracy'' to other countries is impure. It is not for letting the people of other countries live a rich life like Americans do that the US government exports American democracy, but for their own interests. This is the double-standard crux that the US government often adopts on the issue of democracy. It is for fostering pro-American regimes that the Bush administration instigates 'color revolution'' in the Central Asia. By doing so the US will surround Russia further from geopolitical strategy, in order to prevent the latter from regaining its past successes. And for its own out-and-out supporter, even this country is autocratic in US' view, the US government will turn a blind eye to it too. In short, even if there is something democratic as long as it is disadvantageous to the US the US government will suppress it too. Samuel P. Huntington, Professor with Harvard University and US well-known scholar, once pointed out precisely: 'Democracy needs promotion, but if the democracy makes the Islamic fundamentalists come into power, then that will be a horse of another color.

Second, Bush administration's way of 'exporting democracy'' is immoral. The method that the US government exports democracy is autocratic extremely. This includes conspiracy behind the scenes, willful subversion, monetary bribes or even launching a war. Unexpectedly a few days ago the American army kidnapped two Iraqi women by force in Baghdad with the inexplicable reason of 'safeguarding Iraq's democracy'', aiming at forcing their male relatives at large to give themselves up. In order to promote the so-called democracy in the Middle East and in the Central Asia, the US government has spent much silver. American Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan once said publicly, they have spent more than 10 million US dollars on the oppositions in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time they have asked the US Congress to add more than 20 million US dollars in order to help the oppositions to rise in revolt against their government with the aim of forcing their government down finally. This is similarly true for other countries too. The soft and hard strength from the US has interfered and destroyed the normal electoral procedures of these countries. It is hard to say that this kind of elections is democratic and just. This forced underhanded way of 'democracy'' makes the 'democracy'' that the US government advocates cut rate. Third, dangerous consequences are available for the Bush administration to 'export democracy'' by force. Historical experiences prove time and again that the things exported by force may not be acclimatized and go bad with alienation. A comment published by Britain's 'Guardian'' points out, 'It is very dangerous to think that the (western) standardized mode of democracy is universally suitable, can achieve successes in any place, solve the present difficult problem surmounting national border lines and bring along peace instead of making confusion''. In fact, the activities of 'disseminating democracy'' have aggravated national conflicts, causing national splitting in multinational areas after the First World War and the Cold War. At present the chaotic situations in the Middle East and the Central Asia seem to hint that US 'democracy promotion'' has opened a Pandora box bringing along a new round of national conflicts''.

Probably realizing forcible 'democracy promotion'' has brought about questions, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research specialized in policy research under the US Department of State has drafted a research paper recently with the topic being quite thought-provoking - 'Iraq, the Middle East and innovation: domino won't work. I wonder whether this report could let those people making earnest efforts to promote American democracy become a little calmer.

The 'democratic offensive'' pursued by the Bush administration shows to the world that in fact it is not the American democracy that is lovable, but the American arbitrariness that is hateful.

Secretary Rice in Colombia

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:56:00 +0000

4-28-05, 8:8:40 am

Rice to Discover that Colombia is a Tough Nut for U.S. Policy to Crack

From Council of Hemispheric Affairs

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began her Latin America tour today, arriving in Brazil with a series of talks scheduled with leaders in Colombia, Chile and El Salvador. Rice is certain to push Washington’s argument that Latin America’s deep poverty problems can be solved with neo-liberal prescriptions for more democratization and privatization—precisely the formula which has proved ineffective in the past because the democratization was superficial and the privatization being a major part of the reason why poverty abatement has been such a stark failure in most of Latin America. Also, Rice is not expected to even allude to the fact that a de facto coalition embracing Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela and most likely Ecuador could further isolate the U.S. in much of Latin America. As a result, Rice will be flying the flag in four countries on this trip: El Salvador, which is a loyal spear-carrier in Iraq; Chile, whose foreign policy is on bent knees to the U.S. because of its dependency on trade; Colombia, which is now the third leading receiver of U.S. aid in the world; and Brazil, which is too important to ignore. Framing an Escape Clause for Paramilitary Culprits

Ambassador Wood summed up the paramilitary demobilization process by describing it as difficult because neither peace nor justice is likely to be entirely achieved. Progress will be “uncertain,” given that AUC’s freedom fighters range from child soldiers and rightwing zealots to drug traffickers. But if Colombia’s war is ever to wind down, he added, then, demobilization is “necessary.”

At the same 2004 Wilson Center gathering, Colombian Senator Rafael Pardo Rueda warned that the process has not taken into account the price tag of reintegrating Colombia’s 15,000 paramilitary fighters into society or the extent to which their leaders have concentrated political power in their own hands. His concerns were echoed by Gustavo Villegas, director of the Peace and Reconciliation Program in the northwestern city of Medellín, the site of a troubled demobilization effort that began in November 2003. José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said the proposed legislation provided neither justice nor reparations as prison terms were much too brief for someone guilty of ordering a massacre. Uribe’s faulty demobilization plan also allowed paramilitaries to keep ill-gotten gains, including tens-of-thousands of acres snatched from displaced peasants. Michael Frühling, the U.N. human rights chief in Colombia, pointed out that impunity would poison the process and insisted that the Uribe government sever its paramilitary ties in a process he described as “decontamination.” Finally, Daniel García-Peña, Bogota’s chief peace negotiator from 1995 to 1998, noted the government has deployed paramilitaries to thwart popular movements for six decades. García-Peña, who directs the grassroots Colombian group called Planeta Paz, said there was little evidence that the Uribe administration was departing from this tradition and earnestly confronting the paramilitaries.

Paramilitaries – A Gory Record

Paramilitaries, by far, have done most of the killing of civilians in the country’s decades-old gory mêlée. Carlos Castaño Gil, the paramilitary chief who was murdered by rival factions in April 2004, often described himself as a patriot carrying out what government forces would be doing if not for foreign pressure. Many observers in the international community are starting to grapple with an unpleasant truth: if Colombia’s conflict is ever to end, the discourse involving peace with justice may be a zero-sum game in the short run. Colombia’s dysfunctional judicial system makes prosecution of paramilitaries a very unlikely prospect and, as it stands, neither rank-and-file paramilitaries nor guerrillas have much incentive to disarm. The paramilitaries face extradition and guerrillas would almost certainly be assassinated by the thousands upon returning to civilian life. Those seeking peace in Colombia continue to be confounded by elusive but necessary tradeoffs between impunity and accountability.

President Uribe faces a dire political dilemma. For decades the country’s estimated 15,000 paramilitary troops have done most of the dirty work in the government’s notoriously brutal war against leftist guerrilla groups and in quashing the enormous social stress brought on by the country’s domestic protest movements. But the notorious rightwing fighters have become more trouble than perhaps they were worth to many Colombian senior officials, notwithstanding the few highly publicized “demobilizations” of former AUC members which were successful, it is not entirely certain that the government can monitor their activities now that they have returned to civilian life.

Uribe’s Strategy

When Uribe took office in 2002, he pledged to defeat the guerrillas on the battlefield and it looked like paramilitaries would play a prominent role in carrying out this vow. Uribe has had long-standing ties to northwestern drug traffickers, and as governor of Antioquia Province from 1995 to 1997, he promoted Convivir, a national program of civilian watch groups, many of which carried out massacres and eventually joined the paramilitaries.

An increasing number of military and civilian elites have begun to consider the utility of the paramilitaries to achieving national goals. National University political scientist Mauricio Romero Vidal says that this may be why Uribe initiated talks with the AUC, the main paramilitary confederation. Changing gears, the Uribe administration forged a 2003 agreement to phase out the illegal rightwing fighters by the end of 2005. Romero calls the purported demobilizations an attempt by the national government to reestablish legitimacy as well as achieve a monopoly on force.

However it is not clear that the demobilizations to date have been anything more than window dressing. In Medellín, where 860 people turned over weapons in the country’s first paramilitary demobilization, illegal rightwing activity has continued. Paramilitary groups also remain very active in Catatumbo, the site of the largest demobilization in 2004. Nationwide, the number of fighters who have handed over their weapons constitutes a small percentage of the country’s paramilitaries. Since declaring a “ceasefire” in December 2002, the AUC units have carried out at least several thousand murders and disappearances, according to the nongovernmental Colombian Commission of Jurists.

While the Uribe government has extradited lower level drug traffickers by the dozen to the U.S., it has protected Salvatore Mancuso Gómez and several other AUC commanders wanted by Washington. In July 2004, the government even flew in Mancuso and two of his lieutenants to address the Colombian congress.

Even more disturbing, it is far from certain that Uribe would have the wherewithal to bring the AUC to heel even if he were sincere in the effort. Paramilitaries have extended their influence across society, from city halls to universities, from soccer teams to the attorney general’s office. For a president who wants to be reelected in 2006, that is no small personal predicament.

--W. John Green, Ph.D. is a COHA Senior Research Fellow and visiting professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Green is also the autor of Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia.

Dear Italy, Forgive Us

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:40:00 +0000

4-27-05, 10:24 am

Dear Italy, forgive us. Bring your dear soldiers home from Iraq. Teach them about peace. Teach us in the United States about peace. We need to learn from you.

I spent some terrific years of my life in your bel paese, and one of the first things that caught my attention was your humility and your cosmopolitanism. When I was a young exchange student in Italy I had the pleasure of making myself liked, of making myself almost a movie star, simply by telling people that I was an American. That has changed, of course - drastically and bitterly changed, and so swiftly! But it went deeper than that. You wanted very much to know what Americans thought of Italians. It was always with shame that I confessed to you that most Americans don't think much at all about Italians or about the residents of any country other than their own.

Forgive us, Italy, for we know not what we do. Our news media does not tell us. It is only recently that some of us in the United States were able to read briefly about likely CIA kidnappings on your streets. Employees of our government are apparently snatching people off your streets and shipping them to other countries to be tortured.

I can open my mouth, Italia, but what can I say?

We killed the negotiator who got your journalist out of Iraq alive. Then we lied about it.

What can I say to you, after that? How can I ask you to treat me as a human?

We have an established practice of killing journalists. We kill our own, and if others raise questions they lose their jobs. How were we to know that it would cause a fuss if we shot at one of yours?

How were we to know? We need only have spent a few days with you! Decency is alive yet in your Berlusconized terra. Several years ago I was living in Rome and watched a little news drama play out on your television news and talk shows. An American couple and their child had been visiting Italy. They had been attacked and the child killed. The couple had then done something that was more common in the United States than in Italy. They had donated the child's organs and saved some other people's lives. But then you, Italy, did something that is unimaginable in the United States.

You engaged in an extended public debate and self-examination over what you might have to learn from foreigners. You questioned your violence - which is as nothing beside that of the heavily armed nation I call home. You admired and learned from the tourists' generosity. You thanked them and asked them to teach you.

Carissima Italia, over here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we don't learn from anybody. And we're proud of that. Our arrogance is beyond your comprehension. Not Berlusconi himself can fathom it.

But there are those here who oppose what our soldiers are doing in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we're in a majority. See these polls: http://pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

Last month I would have been ashamed to be with you at your rally in Rome, much as I would have loved to see you again. I will be ashamed to see you on Friday when I come for a visit, because your rally was -- once again -- larger and more powerful than our own. We have much to learn from you. Please work with us.

Please find a house on Elba for George and Silvio.

--David Swanson is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. His website is .

Voting Irregularties in Zimbabwe Election

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:38:00 +0000

4-27-05, 10:22 am

Time for the World to Act on Zimbabwe

The Diaspora Vote Action Group (DVAG) whose members were denied an opportunity to vote in last week’s Parliamentary election in Zimbabwe feel that Zimbabweans all over the world have been robbed by the government in Harare which can no longer claim any legitimacy.

Innumerable incidents of voter intimidation and coercion have been cited and discrepancies found in the numbers of voters who voted and the numbers of votes won by respective candidates in the announced results.

For example in Mutare South 16,412 voters were said to have voted for the Zanu (PF) candidate and 12,163 for the MDC. However, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission figures for the total votes cast which were announced at the end of voting is 14,054, suggesting that 14,521 ballots were stuffed.

The Voters’ Roll had already been exposed to be containing names of people who were no longer alive. This, combined with other massive irregularities, and the fact that a confirmed minimum of 10% of the voters were turned away, over and above the deliberate exclusion of an estimated 4 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, illegitimates the outcome.

We call upon all Zimbabweans all over the world to raise their voices so that the rest of the world can understand our rejection of the outcome of the election.

As the international community opts for the easier route on the Zimbabwean crisis they would seek to rely on observers’ conclusions, conveniently forgetting that the observers were cherry-picked by the Harare regime as if they were friends being invited to a ZANU (PF) party or wedding.

The observers’ impartiality began being questioned when the leader of the observer team from South Africa declared the election free and fair before it was conducted.

It is public knowledge that after voting was completed on Thursday, a Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) official announced the number of people who had voted in each constituency.

The announcement was abruptly stopped without explanation - however this was not before they had exposed the discrepancies. The following are just a few examples of the most glaring level of discrepancies, or, rather rigging:

In Beitbridge Constituency, the ZEC announced that 36,821 had voted but the totals for the candidates only add up to 20,602, leaving 16,219 or almost half the votes unaccounted for.

In an attempt to explain away the discrepancies a Zimbabwe High Court Judge, obviously appointed to the bench for his loyalty to Mugabe, said the discrepancies were caused because the figures which were announced as the total votes were interim – before the voting was over.

The judge, who was chairing the ZEC, however, forgot that in the case of Mutare South constituency the actual announced figure for votes won by each candidate was less than the figure which had been announced as the total number of voters.

This would suggest that at some point there ZEC’s officials counted more voters, but as people continued voting the total number was reduced!

In Goromonzi Constituency the ZEC announced the total votes cast as being 15,611. However, the winning Zanu PF candidate received 16,782 votes to the MDC's 8,578, totalling 25,360, with the discrepancy being 9,749 votes – hence the opposition claim that there was ballot stuffing using the dead voters who are still on the voter’s roll. The total votes cast for Makoni North Constituency, according to the ZEC was 14,068. However, the winning Zanu (PF) candidate received 18,910, with the MDC's candidate polling 6,077 votes, giving total votes for the two candidates as 24,987. There difference is a whopping 10,919.

In Murehwa South the total ZEC figure for votes cast is 8 579, however, the winning Zanu PF candidate received 19 200 votes, while the MDC candidate received 4 586, giving a total of 23 786. There is a discrepancy of 15 207.

The only thing that can be said about the figures is that they exposed how incompetent those tasked with rigging were! We believe these figures belong in the Guinness Book of Records.

Whilst results in 25 other constituencies were also said to be not tallying, the cherry-picked Mugabe observers announced that the Zimbabwe elections were free and fair.

This defies common sense, and the lack of credibility of the Mugabe handpicked observers can never be more apparent. This in addition to the incredible audacity and naivety by the South African observer mission to declare the election free and fair before it was conducted.

The fact that the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe has already, in typical fashion, sided with the Mugabe government in dismissing our straightforward, constitutional case for the right of Zimbabweans outside the country to vote, underlines the despair we now feel.

The whole state machinery is waging a brutal war against defenceless masses - crushing their liberties while the judiciary sacrifices everything for patronage and stands firm in defence of an indefensible status quo.

As beneficiaries and by-products of the same pariah, despotic and oppressive regime, nothing much was to be expected from them, but sober minds will now seek answers as to who shall judge the judges, what recourse is left for the exposed and oppressed? Whither Zimbabwe!

The same Zimbabwe Supreme Court which refused our demand that the current international convention to provide polling stations wherever there are significant populations of citizens be extended to Zimbabweans in the UK, Britain South Africa and Botswana and the US had already sat on opposition Movement for Democratic Change electoral petitions dating from the 2000 and the 2002 elections until they were overtaken by current, and again disputed elections.

It is therefore no longer a case of whether anyone has confidence in the impartiality of the courts; rather we begin to question the relevance of the Zimbabwean judiciary beyond the defence of the oppressive Harare regime they so religiously patronise and worship.

Zimbabwe has already been expelled from the community of the Commonwealth for failing to adhere to democratic principles, including The Harare Declaration was adopted with Mugabe chairing the Summit.

We call upon the international community to unequivocally express its abhorrence of the rigging of elections because right thinking people would always rightly why we bother go through elections if a fraudulent electoral process always predetermines the outcome.

General elections in 2000 and Presidential elections in 2002 were rigged and now the 2005 general elections. Unless the will of the people rules, then there is no justification for elections in Zimbabwe.

In this context we call upon the international community to unreservedly denounce and pressurise the Harare regime to recognise Zimbabweans abroad in its periodic elections as failure to do so would be equivalent to declaring us stateless.

As we are not rightfully considered refugees according to the restrictive definitions of the relevant United Nations conventions on refugees we find ourselves brutalised, jailed and exploited, and in the latest UK cases, deported to face an uncertain future in Zimbabwe.

Our cry and struggle is a patriotic demand for involvement, participation and inclusion, not to be made stateless in the 21st century in the full view of the whole world.

An unashamed state versus its stateless citizens and the rest of the world has been exposed time and time again, but we still refuse to believe that the rest of the world would wait and watch and not act until blood starts flowing down Harare streets – then it will be too late and it will be yet another scar on this much suffering planet and will represent failure, again.

Iraqi Labor Unions and the War

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:34:00 +0000

4-27-05, 10:19 am

From IFTU

Most readers of Tribune will, like me and my comrades in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), have opposed the war. I don't regret doing so and I would do so again.

I believed that the Iraqi people had other ways to overthrow Saddam Hussein's despicable fascist-type dictatorship.

But things have changed for us Iraqis. Our new priorities are to keep Iraq intact (the risks of Iraq descending into civil war are still real), to build a strong independent and democratic trade union movement and to create a federal democratic and fully sovereign Iraq.

The election at the end of January represented an historic breakthrough. 60 per cent of Iraq's population – 8.5 million people – went to the polls to elect a 275-member Transitional Assembly.

Without intimidation, elections irregularities and incompetence, we would have seen an even higher turnout. But the bland expression 'went to the polls' hardly captures what happened on January 30 2005.

Even as lines of voters were being blown up by homicidal bombers from the so-called 'resistance' they cast their ballot. At one polling station the fascist in question blew himself up before he could reach the lines of voters. All day long the voters walked around his body, spitting on it as they went in to vote, showing it the purple finger as they left.

One family saw their son blown up, did their duty to his body in the morning, and then insisted they vote in the afternoon in honour of his memory. These are the martyrs of the new Iraqi democracy.

January 30 2005 was a triumph of democracy and the human spirit comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Of course, the shadow of Saddam's brutal dictatorship is long. Iraq will not be transformed overnight. And now, after decades of repression, sanctions and war, we are now facing a terrorist network that actually targets trade unionists.

A railway worker has been beheaded, his head placed on his stomach and prominently displayed. My friend and colleague, Hadi Saleh, the IFTU's International Secretary, was tortured and murdered, horribly, by remnants of Saddam's secret police. Rocket-propelled grenades have been fired at trade union headquarters.

The international labour movement has risen as one to condemn the killing of Hadi and to extend the hand of solidarity to the IFTU. If Hadi had survived he would have been vindicated by the tremendous turnout at the elections.

This election will enable Iraqis to move forward. Already the terrorists and ex-Saddam loyalists are in retreat. The great majority of Iraqis are battling for a new democratic, federal and united Iraq, governed by a secular constitution and the rule of law, parliamentary democracy and a proper separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and an independent judiciary.

A new police force and army that are culturally different from Saddam's repressive apparatus are being trained and will be ready soon. They played a crucial role in providing security during the 30th January elections and should be commended. But the process of building new Iraqi security forces is slow. They are insufficiently trained and remain small in size. As yet they are incapable of taking full responsibility for securing Iraq’s large borders and protecting civilians and maintaining law and order. It is vital that efforts are redoubled until Iraq has security forces able to defend the country and the civilians. These forces must be beholden to no political party or individual but loyal only to the Iraqi constitution and its people.

The political key to defeating sectarian violence is to develop a secular constitution that accommodates the aspirations of all Iraqis, including the Iraqi Kurds, for autonomy within a federal structure. Will Islam be the main source for the new constitution? Compromise must be reached here. Iraq has many other religious communities and discrimination against non-Muslims would be unjust.

The success of Iraqi nation building also lies with the growth of civil society. Genuine democracy cannot be imposed from above but must be built from below, through a strong social movement composed of free political parties, non-governmental organisations, environmental agencies and free unions.

Iraq's economy was abused by Saddam. Pulverised by his wars, bled by the consequent sanctions, devastated by the invasion of 2003, Iraq is crying out for emergency reconstruction. All sectors need rebuilding with foreign investment but national assets must remain publicly owned. We urgently need to diversify – 95 per cent of our income currently derives from oil.

An emergency reconstruction of Iraq – a Marshall Plan for the people of Iraq – can kick start the economy, improve the quality of life of the people and dry-up the recruitment pool for extremists who feed on poverty. Such a Marshall Plan for Iraq would help cement the UN political structure put in place after the fall of Saddam with the aim of building a new, secure and democratic Iraq.

Many Iraqi workers remain suspicious of the very term 'union', because of the repression they endured at the hands of Saddam's 'yellow unions' – part of the state machine of terror. To remedy this, the IFTU will commence a cultural project. A bus will function as a travelling theatre visiting workplaces and communities to promote the basic tenets of trade unionism and dismantle the culture of fear.

Right now, the new unions have little or nothing. Some have buildings, but they are in severe disrepair after the war and subsequent looting. We need computers and fax machines.

The TUC has launched an appeal for Iraqi unions and recently held a conference to boost solidarity and help us train our members and officers.

The IFTU is an integral part of the international trade union movement and has received support from international federations as well as many British unions.

Free trade unionism is growing in this more fertile political climate. The IFTU now represents 12 individual unions and has a membership of at least 200,000. The new and independent teachers' union has 75,000 members in Baghdad alone and 16 branches throughout Iraq. The Kurdistan Workers Syndicate Union has about 100,000 members. We all work together for a federal, democratic and secular Iraq.

Perhaps most significantly to left-wing critics of the war, we are mobilising to persuade the incoming Assembly to enact a progressive labour code that will allow workers to challenge the economic occupation of our country.

The IFTU recently led a successful strike of Hotel Workers in Baghdad. In Basra the IFTU led a solidarity march with students, male and female, who have been beaten by the Islamic Fundamentalists for holding a picnic.

Iraq is being reborn. The lengthy negotiations between the various parties eventually delivered a deal sharing out the key positions of the state. Hopes are high that a broadly based national government can be formed. This development would further attract those political groups, which initially boycotted the political process and the elections but are now looking to join in.

Please do not be fooled by the news. There is still too much intimidation and violence – and not only against the IFTU - but the so-called 'resistance' is increasingly withering and the majority of areas in Iraq are now secure.

The UN should also take an active role in compelling neighbouring countries to guard their borders and to prevent the continued influx of foreign fundamentalist fighters into Iraq seeking to incite sectarian conflict.

A strong labour movement is vital to our goal of rebuilding Iraq on the basis of social justice and unity. We desperately need the support of progressives around the world if basic social democratic and labour values are to take root in Iraq. Progressives desperately need an example of social democracy in the region. We need each other.

--Abdullah Muhsin is a representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.

Autoworkers and health care

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:30:00 +0000

4-27-05, 10:15 am

From People's Weekly World Newspaper People’s Health

The April 11 issue of Business Week had the following headline: “Will the UAW cut GM some slack?” adding, “The union faces a tough call on whether to help carmaker pare health care costs.”

A casual reader might conclude it’s the autoworkers themselves who are responsible for the skyrocketing costs of health care, and not the medical-industrial complex, which has been making gargantuan profits.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just Business Week. Virtually every media outlet says the same thing: It’s the fault of workers and all other patients that health care is so costly. Why doesn’t everyone just stop getting sick?

Autoworkers know better, and, as a case in point, UAW President Ronald Gettelfinger recently called on Congress to enact a universal, single-payer health care system. The union has argued for some time that only a national health program can solve the crisis of spiraling medical costs in the U.S.

A good part of the top brass in the auto industry has reached the same conclusion. Each car manufactured in the USA has a health benefits “surcharge” of about $1,000, making them less competitive with their rivals overseas. In Europe and Asia that’s not the case because national health programs are the norm there.

At the beginning of the 1970s, then-UAW President Walter Reuther, reversing his major mistake of 25 years before, called on Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to make national health insurance a keystone of that new Congress. And, in fact, as the Nixon years morphed into the Ford and then Carter years, Congress deliberated on the Kennedy-Griffiths National Health Security Act.
Even the ever-cautious George Meany, then head of the AFL-CIO, gave some support to this effort, but when push came to shove, he turned his back on it. Rumors were that the building trades were fearful of losing their negotiated health benefits should a national program offer less than what they already had.

This same dilemma surfaced with President Bill Clinton’s health plan. Significant labor and industry support came to Clinton’s side. Again, the UAW and the auto industry were among its leading supporters.

Clinton’s plan ultimately failed. As flawed as it was, it was a victim of two forces: the looming right-wing takeover of Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, and, once again, opposition from unions who feared they stood to lose more than gain.

Today the UAW is fighting to hold the line on health benefits, even in the face of GM’s recently announced losses. At the same time, they, along with other unions, will likely ratchet up their support for real national health program.

Such a strategy must be enriched by lessons from the past. First among these: All labor-

negotiated health benefits must be protected from any national health program that is enacted by Congress. Once that protection is firmly in place, labor can throw its full weight behind its passage.

Let’s get to work.

--Phil E. Benjamin is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.

Surprise Guest at Social Security Rally: An Opposition Party

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:25:00 +0000

4-27, 10:11 am

James Roosevelt stood on a large outdoor stage on Tuesday in a Washington, D.C., park filled with union members waving signs about Social Security. 'Every American,' he said, 'deserves what my grandfather, Franklin Delano Roosevelt laid out for them.'

The shouts that followed that remark must have been heard inside the nearby U.S. Capitol.

'Are we in this country ever a We, or is it I and Me all the time?' asked Roosevelt, to more shouts and applause. The shouting and cheering had already followed remarks by various speakers during the previous hour, including people who recounted how Social Security had affected their families' lives, but also including the leaders of many organizations. Kim Gandy, the President of the National Organization for Women spoke, as did Barbara Kennelly, President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Perhaps the loudest applause greeted Gerald McEntee, President of AFSCME, the union whose green shirts filled the area closest to the stage.

But James Roosevelt concluded his remarks with an unusual introduction that got the whole crowd on the tips of its toes, straining to see what was coming. Roosevelt said he was introducing 'the United States Congress.'

And he wasn't exactly kidding. Dozens and dozens of US Senators and Representatives made their way through from the back of the crowd and up onto the stage. Of course, they were all Democrats, but they were not all Democrats who always act like Democrats. The more right-wing members of the party stood together with the more progressive. While it has become routine for a quarter to a third of Democrats to vote with the Republicans on legislation favoring corporations over citizens, that clearly was not happening on the question of privatization of Social Security – at least not on this day.

The assembled legislature on the stage took turns speaking, a pair at a time, each pair including a senator and a representative, the first two being Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the latter fresh from having voted for the Republicans' bankruptcy bill, which Durbin had voted against. Today they were a united opposition party.

'I am proud to stand here as a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat,' Durbin shouted during a fiery speech that kept the crowd's energy going.

Hoyer, too, was proud to be a Democrat – or as close to it as he's capable of coming. If, he said, Bush 'thought there was no fight left in the Democratic Party, he was sadly mistaken.' But Hoyer was quick to add 'We don't oppose privatization because it's a Republican idea.' (At this point I heard a couple of people in the crowd shout things to the effect of 'Some of us do!') Hoyer, in a rather uneloquent speech, concluded that we should oppose privatization because it is a 'bad idea.'

Durbin and Hoyer both encouraged Bush to continue touring the country to talk about privatization, and offered to buy him tickets to do so. 'The more Americans learn,' Hoyer said, 'the less they like it.'

Next up were Senator Max Baucus of Montana (pro-bankruptcy bill) and Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York (anti-bankruptcy bill). Rangel was greeted with shouts of 'Charlie! Charlie!' from New York union members who'd ridden busses down for the day.

Rangel, like several of those who spoke, expressed his disappointment that Bush was not in town but was instead 'in Texas with Tom Delay.' Rangel said that if he could give Bush some advice it would be that there are three things you do not do. 'You don't spit against the wind. You don't look under the Lone Ranger's mask. And you don't mess with our Social Security!'

Many of the speakers referred to Social Security as the most successful program ever created by the US government. Rangel described its defense as an historic stand. Not everyone, he said, was able to say they had marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., or Adam Clayton Powell. 'But what will you say when they ask you 'What were you doing when the president was destroying every social program?' You can tell them that today you made history because you stopped those rascals when they were trying to take away Social Security.'

Of course, this was all speaking to the choir and to the media. No terribly new arguments or information were presented. But Senator Barbara Boxer on Tuesday released something that should be of interest, a report analyzing the damage done to retirees in three Texas counties that chose in the 1980s to opt out of Social Security and offer their public employees privatized accounts. 'By examining the actual system in place in Texas,' Boxer said in a release, 'this study shows that Americans are worse off with privatized accounts – not in theory, but in reality.'

The third and final pair to approach the podium at Tuesday's rally were Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California (yes and no votes, respectively, on the bankruptcy bill).

Reid didn't pull many punches. If we do nothing to Social Security, he said, Bush will be able to collect 100 percent of his benefits until he is 106. Privatization, he said, is a 'buzz word for destroying Social Security.'

Bush may not know much about it, Reid said, because the crowds he speaks to include only those who agree with him. 'His staff removes people like you,' Reid told the crowd assembled in Washington.

Reid said that Republicans were moving ahead with a Senate hearing on Social Security on Tuesday, but that no one from the Bush Administration had been willing to come and talk about their position.

Reid's central message was that the Democrats are together on opposing privatization. In a promise that activists will want to remember, Reid said, 'It may take 60 days, it may take 6 months, it may take 6 years, it doesn't matter, we're not going to back down!'

The event concluded with loudspeakers blasting the Tom Petty song 'I Won't Back Down.'

--David Swanson is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. His website is www.davidswanson.org.

60th Anniversary of the Defeat of Fascism in World War 2

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:20:00 +0000

4-27-05, 10:05 am

From The Guardian

Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933 and immediately started to suppress all opposition to Nazi rule. Trade Unions were smashed, the Communist Party was banned and all opposition parties and individuals were silenced by the terrorist dictatorship that was imposed. The Nazis preached the superiority of the German race and launched a program of rearmament and preparations for war.

The Soviet Union together with the communist parties around the world launched a campaign to warn that fascism meant war and that if Hitler was to be stopped a world-wide anti-fascist front had to be created. The Soviet Union called for a system of collective security against the rise of fascism.

Unfortunately the western powers, led at that time by the British and French Governments and a number of other European countries, encouraged the rearmament of Nazi Germany believing that its virulent anti-communism meant it could be used to attack and destroy the socialist Soviet Union. They rejected any collective security pact with the Soviet Union.

The first example to prove that fascism was synonymous with war came when Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported the fascist uprising of some Spanish generals who, after a long and bloody war, imposed the Franco dictatorship in that country.

Of all the European countries, only the Soviet Union came to the aid of the democratically elected Spanish republican government. However, Franco was successful and emboldened by the weakness of the British and French governments, Nazi Germany intensified its war preparations.

Warning

The 7th Congress of the Comintern held in Moscow in 1935 was an important milestone. It warned the world of the real nature of fascism describing it as the “open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.

All the attempts of the Soviet Union to achieve a united opposition to the expansionism and war threatened by the Nazis were in vain. Instead of invading the Soviet Union immediately as some western leaders hoped, the Nazis first overran the whole of Western and Central Europe, including France and commenced the bombing of Britain.

On June 22, 1941 the Nazis finally invaded the Soviet Union and in this very act, created the circumstances that would lead to the defeat of the Nazis and fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and, in the Pacific area, the Japanese militarists. By 1943 the Japanese armies had overrun most of Asia and the islands of the Pacific as far south as PNG which at that time was a British and Dutch colony. The Japanese had invaded China in 1931.

Far from the Soviet Union collapsing under the weight of the Nazi attack, as all other European countries had done, the people of the Soviet Union resisted the Nazi onslaught and, after suffering huge casualties, the Soviet Red Army stopped the Nazi advance on the outskirts of Moscow. It was here that the first defeats suffered by the Nazi armies were inflicted.

It was finally in the crucible of war that the common front against the Nazis for which the Soviet Union had been calling for many years, was achieved. Mutual assistance

A pact of mutual assistance was concluded between the Soviet Union and Britain which at that time was led by Winston Churchill.

The battles fought on the Soviet front became a legend among those who were involved throughout the world in the struggle against Nazism and fascism.

The scorched earth policy, the formation of the guerilla units fighting in the rear of the German armies, the transport of whole industries from the western regions of the Soviet Union to the interior, the names of Soviet Army commanders such as Marshalls and Generals Zhukov, Rokassovsky, Sokolovsky, Vassilevsky, Konev and, of course, Stalin who was commander-in-chief of the Soviet armies, became household names.

The sieges of Leningrad and Moscow and the heroic resistance at Stalingrad have gone down in the annals of military history. The Battle of Kursk was the biggest tank battle ever fought by tank brigades. These battles were also the scenes of major defeats suffered by the Nazi armies. These Soviet victories prepared the way for the offensives of the Soviet Red Armies that eventually resulted in the Nazi armies being driven out of the whole of the territory of the Soviet Union, the crushing defeat of the Nazis and the liberation of Eastern Europe. It was the Soviet armies that liberated Berlin and hoisted the red flag over the German Reichstag in that city. It was the Soviet Red Army that liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp and released from this living hell those who survived in this concentration camp that will forever remain as a reminder of the barbarity of fascism.

The struggle for the defeat of the Nazis last from June 1941 to May 1945. In this time the Soviet Union suffered at least 27 million killed, the total or partial destruction of 1710 towns and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets and had its industrial capacity wrecked.

Second front

In this period the people of Britain, Australia and other countries campaigned for the opening by the western powers of a second front in Europe. This was eventually achieved and British, Free French, American and other armed forces attacked the Nazis in Western Europe. The US had joined the war in Europe and the Pacific following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

The sweeping consequences of the defeat of fascism and the part played by the socialist Soviet Union had far-reaching consequences in Europe and Asia. A number of socialist countries came into existence in Eastern Europe after their peoples drove out the quislings (collaborators and traitors) who had sided with the fascists.

But the consequences were not limited to Europe. The defeat of Japanese militarism in the Pacific, in which the Soviet Armies also played a very significant but often ignored part, resulted in the victory of the Chinese revolution and the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Successful revolutions also took place in Vietnam and in part of the Korean peninsula.

The defeat of fascism also led to the intensification of the struggles of the colonial people against the occupation and exploitation of their countries. Indonesia won its independence from Dutch colonialism. India threw off the yoke of British colonialism. Malaysia and Singapore became independent. One after another the many colonial countries in Asia and Africa became politically independent.

Cold war

As a result of these far-reaching developments the western powers which refused to accept the loss of their colonies and the sweep of socialist revolutions in Europe and Asia, launched the Cold War which was a political, economic and military campaign with the aim of restoring capitalism in all the socialist states and re-imposing colonialism in one form or another.

In the post-war period the US has established military bases in over 100 countries and, using modern technology, is attempting to militarise space with the objective of imposing its control over the whole of the world.

Once again there is a major attack being made on the democratic rights of the people. Trade unions are being suppressed, progressive minded individuals are being ostracized in the media and the exploitation of working people, pensioners, the sick and the elderly is being intensified.

Concentration camp type detention centres have been established, in the first place to house refugees. But these could be used to imprison others as the new struggles against war and new forms of fascism arise.

Nazism and fascism was defeated in the 1940s as a result of the struggles of the people of many countries who came to see that fascism meant war, racism, oppression, intensified exploitation and the most barbaric social and political policies.

Today a similar front is needed to defeat the new threat of widespread war, the poverty created by the savage exploitation by the transnational corporations, the attempt to re-impose colonial regimes, the destruction of democratic rights and in some countries the type of terror used against the people by the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s.

Nepal CP Condemns Brutal Attack on Headquarters

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:14:00 +0000

4-27-05, 9:59 am

From RedNet News

Press Statement

The Communist Party of Nepal (UML) strongly condemns the unprovoked attack and vandalism done by plainclothesmen deputed by the royal government inside the Party Headquarters at Balkhu in Kathmandu on April 25. The following misdeeds of the government security men under disguise have amply unmasked the undemocratic and dictatorial face of the unconstitutional royal government in Nepal.

1. It is deplorable that the state security personnel in plainclothes wearing masks and wielding small arms broke into the Party Headquarters without any warrant immediately after the funeral procession of Sadhana Adhikari, the wife of late leader Man Mohan Adhikari. The CPN (UML) was mourning the death of prominent woman leader Sadhana Adhikari at the Party Headquarters. Her body was kept inside the Party premises for paying homage. Different party leaders and activists from different political parties were present to pay solemn tribute to her. The funeral procession was started at 1.30 PM and mourners joined it. Thus the whole party leaders and activists were mourning the demise of their beloved women leader. On the contrary, the government security personnel attacked the youths and party activists who were present at the Party Headquarters to mourn the death of a woman leader. Thus the state security personnel grossly undermined human rights under the direction of the royal government.

2. A gang of plainclothesmen, 25 in number and some of them were masked and carrying small arms, entered inside the Party Office and indiscriminately attacked various party activists at around 4 PM. Half a dozen of the masked personnel went up to 4 th floor of the Party office chasing party members. Some of them entered in the library room and smashed a door of toilet suspecting one of the wanted members to be inside the toilet. In fact another student leader named Jhapat Rawal was inside the toilet. The student leader was dragged out and brutally beaten. Similarly, another youth leader Narayan Basnet was manhandled inside the Party premises. They kicked the locked doors of the office of the Party General Secretary, Central Auditing Committee and Central Disciplinary Committee and threatened party members with revolvers. Thus the plainclothesmen continued their mischievous hooliganism for about 40 minutes inside the Party. They were apparently looking for some youth leader to arrest them. The plainclothesmen were carrying their surveillance of all mourners and visitors noting down car and motorbike numbers even when the people were paying their homage to late Mrs. Adhikari. Some of the visitors were arrested on the way.

3. The higher authorities of the security, when contacted afterwards pretended their ignorance about the deputation of the plainclothesmen at the Party office. However, some of the concerned government authorities hesitantly confessed that those security personnel were guided by higher 'Security mechanism'.

4. All major political parties have condemned the act of hooliganism of the plainclothesmen. Human rights organizations and civil society organization have also condemned the act as the testimony of autocracy and repression of the royal government.

5. The attack and hooliganism of the government security men in the Party Headquarters has evidently shown that the so-called loyalty of the King toward the multiparty democracy is only a farce. This incident has exposed the King's lip service to the multiparty democracy in his statements delivered both in Indonesia and China recently. Thus the words and deeds of the royal government are entirely contradictory. The Communist Party of Nepal (UML) would like to draw attention of international community and human rights organizations and activists to this reality.

6. The Communist Party of Nepal (UML) firmly believes that undemocratic actions and repressive measures will continue until the restoration of democracy and human rights in the country. Therefore, once again, the CPN (UML) appeals to all democratic political parties of the country to accelerate democratic movement in the country and the Party also calls again to the international community to continue their support and solidarity to the democratic movement of the Nepali people. The democratic political parties together with the democratic Nepali people, will continue their fight for democracy and human rights till the autocracy is defeated in the country.

Communists Discuss Japanese-Chinese Relations

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 02:11:00 +0000

4-27-05, 9:56 am

From Akahata

Shii Kazuo, Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee chair, on April 15 met with visiting Chinese National People's Congress Vice-Chairperson Lu Yongxiang at the JCP head office in Tokyo.

Lu Yongxiang, who led a delegation visiting Japan at the invitation of the Japanese House of Representatives Speaker, opened his remarks by commending the JCP for its position toward historical issues that involve relations between the two countries, pointing out that the JCP and the Communist Party of China maintain friendship and mutual cooperation.

While pointing out that Japan and China, which are geographically very close to each other, have two thousand years of history of exchanges and remain major trade partners maintaining relations of co-prosperity, he said that the Chinese people are fed up with the Japanese government's failure to deal properly with the historical issues.

Lu Yongxiang said that although recent anti-Japanese demonstrations have been prompted by the Japanese government's attitude toward historical issues, use of violence must be rejected. He said people should act in conformity with the law. He also expressed hope that the JCP in this regard will exert its influence to help develop Japan-China relations.

Giving the Chinese NPC delegation a warm welcome, JCP Chair Shii stated that he is pleased to see good relations being developed by the JCP and the CPC which share a history of common struggle in opposition to war of aggression.

He also expressed concern about the worsening relations between the two peoples. 'One of the causes of the deterioration is the fact that in Japan there are some who try to propagate views affirming and even glorifying the history of the Japanese war of aggression and colonialism,' he said.

Shii went on to say:

'The world order was established after World War II on the basis of a condemnation of the war of aggression by Japan, Germany, and Italy. If Japan refuses to accept this foundation, it will lose its right to be a legitimate member of Asia and the world community. It is from this viewpoint that we have stated our critical view of Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's visit to Yasukuni Shrine and the government's approval of a history textbook that asserts that the Japanese war of aggression was justifiable. Germany could earn its neighboring countries' trust because it expressed remorse for its war of aggression. I believe that Japan should follow this example and admit that its war of aggression against China was a grave mistake, so that it can share the historical fact with China and make efforts to develop relations with China to become friends who work together for a bright future.'

Having said this, Shii said he hopes that Chinese people take into account the following three points:

First, the Japanese war of aggression and the present business activities carried out in China by Japanese firms must not be considered to be the same.

Until the end of the war of aggression, Japanese products were a symbol of Japanese economic aggression that gave rise to a boycott in China. Today, Japanese business activities are based on agreements between the two countries. It is necessary to develop Japan-China economic relations in a way that will serve the interests of both peoples.

Second, although some Japanese politicians go against the lessons of history, they must not be seen as representing the opinions of the Japanese people. A great majority of the Japanese people wish for peace and want to prevent Japan from making the same mistake in going to war again. Developing solidarity between the Japanese and Chinese people is very important.

Third, the use of violence must be rejected as a means of expressing protests or criticism of the reactionary moves of some Japanese leaders. It is important to maintain a reasoned and calm attitude in dealing with any questions.

Shii requested Chinese NPC Vice Chair Lu Yongxiang to let the Chinese government know that the JCP hopes every necessary step will be taken to ensure the safety of Japanese residents and firms as well as the Japanese embassy.

Lu commended the JCP for maintaining a firm position on issues in difficult times and said that the three points raised by Shii were all understandable, adding that 'the Chinese people will endorse that position.'

He said that historically, the Chinese have distinguished the handful of Japanese militarists from the general public as well as some politicians who hold a distorted historical outlook. Distinguishing present economic relations and friendship from what went down in history, China will protect the safety of Japanese and other foreign residents and firms.

Shii said, 'I feel pleased to find that we have agreement on the basic issues. Let us do our utmost to increase friendship between Japan and China.'

Campaign for Pro-Union Law Launched

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 01:59:00 +0000

4-26-05, 9:45 am

Workers, union activists, and community leaders launched a campaign late last week to pass federal legislation guaranteeing the right of working people to form unions at their workplaces and protecting them from harassment and intimidation by anti-union employers. Even worse, in some states, right-wing governments have passed so-called right to work laws over the past few decades that make unions even harder to organize. Claiming to protect workers’ rights, these laws allow companies to increase their anti-union campaigns and to use fear and intimidation with impunity to block unionization efforts.

Workers in the states that have passed these laws earn an average of 15 percent less in wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, states that have passed anti-union laws are mainly in the South and the Plains states where poverty rates are higher than in states that do not have 'right to work' laws. It is no wonder that pro-union people call these laws 'right to work for less' laws.

Union workers, because of legally binding contracts made through the collective bargaining process, simply do much better in terms of wages and benefits and respect in the workplace than non-union workers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union workers earn about 22% more than non-union workers. Union contracts usually help eliminate gendered and racially motivated income gaps and hiring and promotion discrimination.

Union workers have a powerful ally in the fight against racial discrimination. Not only do racial minorities earn more when they are members of unions, but they have recourse against racist treatment in the workplace.

Just last week, for example, the international office of the United Steelworkers (USW) filed a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Imerys Carbonates, a multinational corporation with a plant in Sylacauga, Alabama. The complaint alleges 'that African American employees have been subjected to a hostile work environment because of racial epithets and threats made by white supervisors.'

Without union representation these workers and thousands of others like them would face abuse and hate alone and without the ability to defend their rights.

As for benefits, 9 out of 10 union workers have medical care coverage, while one in three non-union workers has no coverage at all. Five of six union members have a pension plan, while only just over half of non-union workers have one. In fact, only one in six non-union workers have a defined-benefit plan that is federally insured and guarantees a monthly income during retirement. Seventy percent of union workers have defined-benefit plans.

Studies also show that union workers are more productive and that union contracts help eliminate poverty. Further, union members have a stronger political voice and are more often engaged in civic and political activities that improve their communities and strengthen our democracy.

So if unions are so great, but employers refuse to recognize them and threaten workers into not joining them, how do we change the situation to protect workers’ rights?

One solution is to pass federal legislation that would forbid employers’ threats and enforce an equal relationship between workers and their employers in the process of organizing unions. The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696 and S. 842) is such a law. It was introduced in Congress last week by Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

This bill would reform the nation’s basic labor laws by requiring employers to recognize the union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation. It also would provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes and establish stronger penalties for violation of the rights of workers seeking to form unions or negotiate first contracts.

The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced last year and gained 210 co-sponsors in the House and more than 30 in the Senate, but the Republican leadership refused to allow it to go to the floor for a vote.

To learn more about the Employee free Choice act and to find out how to express your support for the bill click here.

--Joel Wendland can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.