workers.org Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! MARCH 17, 2005 VOL. 47, NO. 9 50¢

•EEUU amenaza a presidente venezolano Lebanese reject •Tribunal: ‘No pena de muerte para jóvenes’ 12 U.S. intervention FIGHT FOR EMPIRE? Recruiting takes Huge Beirut rally rebuffs ‘Gucci revolution’ nose dive 3 By Fred Goldstein to the demands by the Bush administration and its allies and stooges that Syria remove its troops from Lebanon and that The Lebanese people converged on Beirut from all the poor Hezbollah be disarmed. areas of the country on March 6 in a massive anti-imperialist, Reuters of March 8, referring to a speech by Hezbollah leader anti-Zionist showing. They gave a resounding rebuff to efforts Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, reported that “Nasrallah said no one by the Bush administration to isolate Syria, attack Hezbollah and in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Beirut in set the stage for expanding its war for “regime change” in the 1984”—a few months after a car bombing which killed 241 Middle East to Damascus. Marines at their headquarters in Beirut. “We have defeated them WOMEN’S Organizers said 1 million demonstrated. Even the most mod- in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again,” he HISTORY erate estimate by the big business press was half a million. is reported to have said. Overhead panning of the demonstration by video cameras show- Placards at the rally, according to the AP, said “Syria & MONTH ing it overflowing Riyadh Solh Square in central Beirut for as far Lebanon brothers forever,” “America is the source of terrorism,” as the eye could see in all directions. The demonstration was • Sisters in the struggle 6 “All our disasters are from America,” and “No to American- close to one quarter of the entire population of Lebanon, which Zionist intervention, yes to Lebanese-Syrian brotherhood.” • ‘Biology is not destiny!’ 7 is estimated at 4.4 million. Nasrallah answered the Bush administration, which has been A demonstration of similar proportion in the U.S. would be trying to get rid of the present Lebanese government, claiming • Kansas a battleground in the range of 50 to 60 million. it is a puppet of Syria. Pointing to the crowd in the square he again 6 Two giant cranes held banners saying “Thanks to Syria” and said: “I ask our partners in the country or those looking at us “No to foreign interference.” The demonstration was an answer Continued to page 8

Troops Out Now Coalition at New York City Hall ITALIAN press conference. JOURNALIST Pentagon can’t kill the truth 9

FALLUJA UNDER ATTACK Iraqi doctor tells what happened 8

MAU MAU The hidden history 10

MARCH 19:. WW PHOTO: JOHN CATALINOTTO

Subscribe to Anti-war march to start in Harlem Workers World By LeiLani Dowell ‘OUT NOW’ because these two simple is to continue the struggle against war and Trial subscription: $2 for 8 weeks New York words convey the absolute zero tolerance racism.” One year subscription: $25 for the occupation of Iraq that must drive On March 9, the coalition will hold a On the weekend of March 19-20, the our organizing henceforth. We need every- press conference at City Hall to announce NAME U.S. government will once again be facing one to know that the mass movement is the introduction of a resolution in the City worldwide protests against the illegal and reopening a full-scale campaign to stop the Council calling for the immediate with- ADDRESS brutal occupation of Iraq. In New York war and end the occupation and that the drawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, as well as CITY/STATE/ZIP City, activists from various communities movement means business.” to spend the money appropriated for the and struggles have formed a vibrant coali- The coalition chose Jan. 15, the anniver- war to fund cities. EMAIL PHONE tion to stop the war at home and abroad. sary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birth- Workers World Newspaper The Troops Out Now Coalition will be day, to first announce its plans because Starts at Marcus Garvey Park 55 W. 17 St. NY, NY 10011 marching on March 19 from Harlem to “trying to emulate his courage in the strug- The march route on the 19th holds spe- 212-627-2994 Central Park and then on to Mayor gle against racism and against the war in cial significance. The day will begin at www.workers.org Michael Bloomberg’s residence. Its litera- Vietnam is more important than ever. We 10:00 a.m. in the African-American com- ture explains: “We call this movement believe the best way to honor his memory Continued to page 3 Page 2 March 17, 2005 www.workers.org Murders of judge's family show Law is lax when terror In the U.S. suspects are racists Anti-war march to start in Harlem ...... 1 Law is lax when terror suspects are racists ...... 2 By David Hoskins security system in order to carry out the murders. Vermont towns vote down the war ...... 2 If there was government complicity at some level, it cer- Recruiting down, threat of draft looms ...... 3 Speculation is intense surrounding the murder of the tainly would not be the first time in racially motivated Teachers, students plan anti-war strategies ...... 3 husband and mother of Chicago federal judge Joan killings. United States’ intelligence agencies have a history Hundreds pack meeting against school cuts...... 4 Lefkow. of involvement and concealment when it comes to terror- On the picket line ...... 4 Lefkow herself had earlier been targeted for assassina- ist attacks perpetrated by white supremacist organizations. Immigrants march for drivers' licenses ...... 4 tion by Matt Hale and the white supremacist World For example, it took decades before anyone from the Supreme Court ruling too late for many ...... 5 Church of the Creator after she enforced an appeals court terrorist Ku Klux Klan was brought to justice for the death ruling in a trademark case and ordered the group to change of four young girls as a result of the bombing at the 16th Justice for Jeffrey Baez ...... 5 its name. She later levied a $200,000 fine and found Hale Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. The FBI, which Thinking about sisters in the struggle ...... 6 in contempt of court for defying the court order. Hale has had thoroughly penetrated the Klan, was the main obsta- Abortion rights under siege in Kansas ...... 6 been in prison since April 2004 for soliciting the assassi- cle to bringing the fugitive terrorists who perpetrated this FIST youth leader: 'Biology is not destiny!' ...... 7 nation of Lefkow in retaliation for her ruling. crime to account. (Newsweek, July 21, 1997) The U.S. Marshals Service has been charged with pro- By casting a wide net of suspicion, instead of focusing Around the world tecting federal judges and prosecutors since 1789. If it is closer scrutiny on Matt Hale and the white supremacist Lebanese reject U.S. intervention ...... 1 determined that the Feb. 28 double murder of Michael movement, the FBI could again provide significant oppor- Film: Palestinian 'Women in Struggle' ...... 7 Lefkow and Donna Humphrey was carried out as a result tunity for a racial terrorist organization to escape trial. Uproar in Italy after attack on journalist ...... 8 of Judge Lefkow’s ruling, it would mark the first time that Meanwhile, the FBI, as an instrument of the racist Eyewitness Falluja: An Iraqi view of the U.S. attack . . 9 the U.S. Marshals Service failed to protect the family state, targets innocent individuals and organizations in Mau Mau against the British ...... 10 member of a federal judge targeted over a case decision. other cases. Haitians challenge Bush's death-squad ‘democracy’ . 11 (Quad City Times, March 1) Experts in int'l law back Milosevic defense ...... 11 Case of Cuban Five The FBI is investigating the incident and has main- French students protest massive cuts ...... 11 tained that it is far too early to make assumptions and that The case of the Cuban Five is a prime example of the a large number of angles must be investigated. This is U.S. intelligence agencies’ perverse sense of priorities. In Editorials despite the fact that a number of individuals representing 1998 agents arrested five Cubans who had carefully col- The tiniest victims...... 10 disparate organizations, ranging from the progressive lected and provided Cuba with evidence of terrorist plots Anti-woman scheme fails...... 10 Southern Poverty Law Center to the Zionist Anti-Defama- planned by right-wing Cuban exile organizations in tion League, and including several white supremacists Miami. The Cuban government turned over the informa- Noticias En Español themselves, believe that individuals sympathetic or affil- tion to the FBI. Gobierno venezolano expone amenazas de EE.UU. . . 12 iated to Matt Hale and the World Church of the Creator Instead of acting on the evidence to ensure that the ter- were willing and capable of carrying out the murders. rorist plots were prevented, the five were charged with El Tribunal Supremo ...... 12 (Christian Science Monitor, March 3) espionage and convicted after a trial in an area infamous WW CALENDAR Hale’s group, which is also anti-Semitic, incorrectly for its bias against Cuba. They were held in solitary con- believed that Lefkow and her family were Jewish. finement for 17 months. Almost seven years later, these BOSTON. Sat., March 19 Troops Out Now Car Caravan to Questions remain on how the killers were able to cir- five brave Cubans are still incarcerated in U.S. prisons for Sat., March 12 Save King Drew & Stop the War. cumvent the tight government protection and private attempting to prevent real terrorists from attacking inno- IWD speak-out featuring Oslyn Join this feeder caravan to the cent civilians in the U.S. and Cuba. Brumant, Local 8751, UAW; Diane Hollywood anti-war demo. Meet at Dujon, Mass. Welfare Rts.; LeiLani 10AM at King/Drew Hospital, pro- For months the media and the government have been Dowell, FIST; Kim Rosario, mother ceed to the Hollywood demo. preoccupied with targeting Muslim organizations and of GI in Iraq and others. At Vermont towns vote YWCA, 7 Temple St., Cambridge. NEW YORK. charging them with alleged terrorist ties. Often the usual Sponsored by Women's Fightback Sat., March 19 Network, (617) 522-6626. down the war liberal judicial processes have been violated as suspects U.S. troops out now. rally in found themselves detained without charges or the right LOS ANGELES . Central Park, East Meadow, noon. By Leslie Feinberg to counsel. Many are known to have been tortured. Sponsored by Troops Out Now Fri., March 11 Coalition. For info (212) 633-6646 Burlington, Vt. IAC film showing. “Mission Against or www.TroopsOutNow.org. Nicaraguan hero barred from U.S. Terror,” the story of the Cuban Five. Learn about the case of SAN DIEGO. Vermont activists put the Iraq War on the agenda of And just recently, a Nicaraguan woman beloved in her Town Meeting Day here this year. The New England tradi- these five held as political prison- Every Friday ers in the U.S. Featured Speaker: country for risking her life in the struggle to overthrow Int’l Action Center weekly meet- tion of town meetings is rooted in the 17th century. Walter Lippmann, writer, editor of ings. 7 p.m. At 3930 Oregon On March 1, a snowy day, Vermonters spoke out in what the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza was denied a visa CubaNews. Child care available. Street #230. For info email by the U.S. State Department on the grounds that she had 7:30 p.m. At 5274 W Pico Blvd, is believed to be the first formal referendum on the U.S. [email protected]. or phone rm 203. war against Iraq. The resolution got on the agenda in some been involved in “terrorism.” Dora Maria Tellez led the (619) 692-4422. 56 towns—more than 20 percent of the state’s municipali- Sat., March 12 brigade that liberated the city of Leon during the Nicara- Sun., March 13 Workers World Party Class: “A ties—after 5 percent of the voters signed petitions. guan Revolution, and later became minister of health. Premiere of "Chávez, Venezuela, Revolutionary History of Mexico.” By evening, at least 40 towns had passed the call for the and the New Latin America" Tellez was recently appointed as the Robert F. Kennedy Featuring Adrian Garcia, video. Sponsored by IAC. 2 p.m. president and Congress to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. educator and activist with a long visiting professor in Latin American studies at Harvard At downtown San Diego Central Three other towns tabled the resolution for considera- history in progressive struggle. 4 Library, 820 E Street, 3rd floor University, but now cannot enter the U.S. to assume her p.m. Child care available. At 5274 tion, three refused to consider it, and four defeated it. auditorium. Vermont has the highest per-capita rates of National teaching post. (Guardian [Britain], March 3) W Pico Blvd, rm 203 (halfway between La Brea & Fairfax). Guard deployment and casualties in the Iraq War of any Meanwhile, the real terrorism legacy of Birmingham state in the country. National Guard members from 200 lives on as right-wing extremists suspiciously slip past Workers World of this small state’s towns and cities have been shipped government security to carry out the execution of a judge’s 55 West 17 Street off to fight a war which the resolution made clear was family members. based on lies. New York, N.Y. 10011 And a racist, imperialist foreign policy ensures that the While the resolution has no sharp teeth, anti-war Phone: (212) 627-2994 activists who worked to put it on the agenda stress that federal government wastes working people’s dollars on Fax: (212) 675-7869 they did so to create a grassroots discussion in schools, investigating charitable organizations that provide much- E-mail: [email protected] town halls and libraries. needed social programs in places like occupied Palestine Web: www.workers.org Feinberg spoke to an audience of 900 in Burlington on and Lebanon, while real terrorists such as the World Vol. 47, No. 10 • March 17, 2005 March 4. She urged all to take the grassroots anti-war Church of the Creator and the KKK are allowed to roam Closing date: March 9, 2005 movement into the streets on March 19. the streets with impunity. Editor: Deirdre Griswold Technical Editor: Lal Roohk JOIN US. Workers World Atlanta Chicago Los Angeles San Diego, Calif. Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, Leslie Feinberg, Monica Moorehead, Gary Wilson Party (WWP) fights on all P.O. Box 424, 27 N. Wacker Dr. #138 5274 West Pico Blvd., 3930 Oregon St., issues that face the Atlanta, GA 30301 Chicago, IL 60606 Suite 203 Suite 230 West Coast Editor: John Parker working class and (404) 627-0815 (773) 381-5839 Los Angeles, CA 90019 San Diego, CA 92104 Contributing Editors: Greg Butterfield, Pat Chin, Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, oppressed peoples—Black [email protected] Fax (773) 761-9330 (323) 936-1416 (619) 692-4496 Berta Joubert-Ceci, Milt Neidenberg and white, Latino, Asian, [email protected] [email protected] Technical Staff: LeiLani Dowell, Shelley Ettinger, Adrian Garcia, Maggie Vascassenno Arab and Native peoples, Baltimore Cleveland San Francisco Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Carlos Vargas women and men, young 426 E. 31 St., P.O. 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By LeiLani Dowell Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is pushing its In the Indianapolis case, investigators video game as a recruiting tool. The gam- have said that the recruiter, Indiana In February, both the Army Reserve ing website XGP Gaming describes it: National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, used and the Marine Corps missed their “Built in partnership with the U.S. Army official information to target young recruiting goals for a second consecutive … ‘America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier’ women who were particularly vulnerable month. The Army Reserve fell 1,936 offers the most true-to-life Army experi- to authority, due to their ages and back- name a few. Several of these protests have recruits short of its active-duty personnel ence, allowing you to create a soldier and grounds. Since Vetesy’s arrest, he has been successfully kicked recruiters off campus, goal—the first time in five years that this take him through the thrills and adventure removed from a recruiting assignment, and several have resulted in the arrest of has happened—and 33 short of reserves. of an army career.” but was able to remain in the Indiana protesters. The Marine Corps was short 192 recruits This summer the game, which has been National Guard. On March 8, the San Francisco Board of in February and 84 in January— marking available via the Internet, will be sold for the Chief Pentagon spokesperson Law- Education will consider a motion to cut all the first time in 10 years that it has had Xbox and PlayStation 2 gaming consoles. rence Di Rita blamed media coverage of its ties with the military, including “end- trouble reaching its goals. Recruiters are trained in the mentality the atrocities in Iraq for the decline in ing military recruitment on campuses; In response, the U.S. military is step- that allows sexual abuse to be committed recruits. He evidently doesn’t want youth ending the Junior Reserve Officer ping up its efforts to entrap youth in the with impunity within the military, and as or their parents to know how terrible this Training Corps (JROTC); and guarantee- military machine. Democracy Now! such present a serious threat to the youth war is. “I mean, without question, when ing that all students and parents are reported on March 3 that the military is they are exposed to. there’s the kind of coverage that there has informed of their right to deny military adapting its marketing pitches to recruit The Indianapolis Star of March 1 been about casualties—and we certainly recruiters access to their names, addresses more African-Americans and Latin@s. reported on the case of a 36-year-old mourn all the casualties, but they are cov- and telephone numbers.” Ron Jacobs reported in the March 5/6 recruiter who had been arrested for sex- ered—parents factor those kinds of things In the face of a brutal occupation that Counterpunch that students at the Uni- ual assault against six young women, in to what they want their children doing,” Washington isn’t planning to end anytime versity of Vermont in Burlington recently most of them high school students. This is he said. soon, and the very real possibility of a received emails from a recruiter in the area the latest of at least six reported cases of Resistance to military recruiters has draft—the Selective Service is set to report with the heading “Army pays off student sexual assault by recruiters in the two picked up in campuses and communities to the White House on March 31 that loans.” And both the Army and the years since the passing of the federal No throughout the United States. Protests things are in order to implement the draft Marines are increasing the number of Child Left Behind Act, which allows mili- have been held in Atlanta, Berkeley, within 75 days—this resistance is only recruiters—the Marines by 10 percent, the tary recruiters greater access to students’ Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Hackensack, bound to grow. Army by 20 percent—and offering larger personal information. Charges against N.J., Los Angeles, Madison, Wis., New Youth from across the country will be in enlistment and reenlistment bonuses to recruiters have been filed in Baltimore, Haven, Conn., New York, Philadelphia, the streets on March 19, the second anni- recruits and soldiers. California, Indianapolis and New York. Seattle and Temescal Canyon, Calif., to versary of the war, to fight for their lives. Teachers, students plan anti-war strategies

By Heather Cottin of after-school programs and a host of colleagues were able to connect with time [this] has drawn the wrath of man- New York other indications of a federal and state people in similar circumstances, and to agement —and politicians like [Governor offensive against education. plan activities and campaigns to bring George] Pataki and [Mayor Michael] When Educators Against the War An “Anti-war Strategy” workshop par- the anti-war movement into their Bloomberg.” The PSC faces a measly 1.5 planned a conference in New York, they ticipant said the $200 billion for the war schools. percent wage increase. thought that 400 to 500 people would coupled with severe education cutbacks The No Child Left Behind Act has In a workshop called, “Struggling for a show up. Instead, an overflow crowd of seems engineered to induce poor youth to forced high schools and colleges to man- contract in the context of struggling 770 packed into the auditorium and class- become cannon fodder for the U.S. war date registration for the military. against the war in Iraq,” Bowen said it was rooms of Hunter High School here on machine. Recruiters are “swarming all over the “personally difficult to negotiate a con- March 5. One third of the participants One of the best-attended workshops schools in working-class areas,” said a tract and organize the PSC against the were students, mostly from high schools. was on “How to build an anti-war move- teacher from Harlem. Several workshops war, but it is necessary to do both.” Students and teachers from as far away ment in the high schools.” It was led by and union caucuses discussed campaigns A proposal by a conference organizer to as California, Vermont and Virginia came high school students who are mobilizing against recruitment. support a universal draft to “democratize” determined to organize anti-war activity for March 19 and working on anti-recruit- Conference organizers included anti- the economic draft received little support. in schools and colleges across the coun- ment activities. war activists from unions representing The overwhelming turnout for this try. A high school student from Mineola, students and educators, from elementary conference indicates that the anti-war Over and over, comments focused on Long Island, who came alone was grate- through graduate schools. Barbara struggle is thriving and growing in the the devastating effects that the war on ful to find other young people like herself Bowen, president of the Professional Staff schools, and the link between the state, Iraq has had on education here: increased organizing in their schools. Teachers Congress, said, “The struggle against the the war and the economy is becoming class size, austerity budgets, elimination who felt isolated among conservative war has energized unions but at the same clear. March 19: anti-war march to start in Harlem Continued from page 1 the protesters will march to a military Buses, car caravans and peace trains are recruiting station on 125th Street and Dock workers to shut expected from many parts of the country. munity of Harlem with a rally at Marcus Malcolm X Avenue (Lenox Avenue). One down ports March 19 Activists in St. Paul, Minn., are organizing Garvey Park, located at 5th Avenue of the busiest stations in the U.S., it is a Longshore and Warehouse Union a bus. People are flying in from San Diego, between 120th and 124th streets. perfect location to protest the economic Local 10 announced on March 9 that Calif., to take part in this significant day of According to east-harlem.com, “Marcus draft that snares so many poor youth, par- it will honor the International Day of action. New organizing centers are being Garvey Park is one of the oldest public ticularly youth of color in Harlem. Protest Against the U.S. War and added daily. squares in Manhattan. Central to the life Occupation of Iraq by not working In the New York area, antiwar groups, of Harlem for more than 150 years, it has Noon rally in Central Park any cargo in San Francisco Bay Area churches, unions and community organi- served as a meeting place for neighbors, a The march will continue on to the East ports on March 19. zations are preparing to take to the streets front yard and play area for schoolchild- Meadow in Central Park (97th Street and on March 19. Some are organizing feeder ren, and a holy place for members of local 5th Avenue) for a major rally at noon. While police claim there is a morato- marches. People in Connecticut, Long churches.” Surrounding the park are the In 2004, protesters were denied the rium on new marches on Fifth Avenue, Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, Harlem branch of the New York Public right to march on Central Park during the permits have been issued recently for and Westchester are organizing “Peace Library, North General Hospital, and a Republican National Convention. Once other new marches. The coalition remains Trains” on public transportation lines to number of schools and places of worship, again, Mayor Bloomberg’s office is in negotiations with the police about this get to the event. including the Handmaids of Mary attempting to stifle the antiwar movement matter. More than 40 groups are actively par- Convent, one of the few Black convents in by denying a permit to march—but this At 3:00 p.m., the march will continue to ticipating in the Troops Out Now the United States. time after the Central Park rally, when the mayor’s mansion on 79th Street to Coalition. The park, originally known as Mount protesters have applied to march down demand “Fund cities, not war!” There will be other anti-war protests in Morris Park, was renamed in honor of Fifth Avenue. Speakers and performers at the Central 30 different states that weekend, the sec- Marcus Garvey in 1973. Garvey started the Fifth Avenue is home to many of the Park rally will include a recorded message ond anniversary of the war on Iraq. Also United Negro Improvement Association wealthiest in the city, and the Bloomberg from Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison, notable will be the one in Fayetteville, (UNIA), the first modern Black nationalist administration is clearly attempting to singer/poet Patti Smith, New York City N.C., home of the largest U.S. military organization, in 1914. The UNIA attracted shield them from the anger of the working Councilperson Charles Barron, attorney base. thousands of supporters at its peak and class, who will be out in force to demand Lynne Stewart, International Action For more information on the Troops Out boasted more than 800 chapters. money for social services, not war, racism Center founder Ramsey Clark, Professor Now Coalition and the New York rally on Following a cultural rally at the park, and domestic repression. Howard Zinn, and others. March 19, visit www.troopsoutnow.org. Page 4 March 17, 2005 www.workers.org Fight dictates of ‘control board’ ON THE Hundreds pack meeting Students build ties against school cuts with unions By Bryan G. Pfeifer present were state Revenue Commis- field school district and 40 percent have Students at opposite ends of the coun- Springfield, Mass. sioner Alan LeBovidge, a former vice sent resumés to other districts. Recent try have organized support for labor on chair of Price Waterhouse Coopers; Jake Massachusetts state budgets have cut their campuses. A Northeastern snow storm that even- Jacobson, a Harvard and MIT graduate more in per pupil spending than any Students at the University of Colorado tually dumped over seven inches on the billed as a “turn-around specialist”; Tom other state in the country. These cuts in Boulder voted last year to spend $280 area that day didn’t stop over 800 teach- Trimarco, former chair of the state’s have had their greatest impact on urban million in student fees to help pay for ers and their allies from packing the retirement fund; and the board’s execu- school districts. In Springfield this has needed construction after the state cut Central High School auditorium here on tive director, Philip Puccia, who is a for- led to the loss of 300 teaching positions funds for higher education. But they March 1 for a public speak-out to tell the mer adviser at the U.S. Department of and 200 teacher aid positions. attached provisions requiring construc- city’s Finance Control Board: Hands off Transportation. (www.seateachers.com) tion workers to receive family health teachers and all city workers! The SEA placed effigies with name tags The board’s freezing of wages and care coverage, be trained and be paid the The public forum, part of an ongoing of the no-show board members on stage threats to cut benefits have made local prevailing wage. campaign by the Springfield Education and a banner declaring, “Control Board Springfield’s teachers the lowest-paid in When they discovered this fall that the Association, exposed the control board’s is the Death of our City.” Mayor Charlie Hampden County. Due to wage freezes, university hadn’t complied, they formed attempts to move money out of the Ryan and City Council President Tim Springfield schools have lost over 160 a coalition with area labor groups and already-strapped school budget to pay for Rooke, members of the Control Board by licensed, highly qualified teachers to sur- held meetings with the university. Now other city expenses; its unilateral cuts in virtue of their office, did attend. In an rounding communities, where they are the workers have those protections. benefits that will cost city employees, attempt to circumvent the March 1 pub- earning anywhere from $3,000 to (Feb./March 2005 America@Work) including educators, thousands of dol- lic speak-out, the Control Board sched- $12,000 more a year. At Georgetown in Washington, D.C., lars; and its threats to cut even further the uled a March 7 speak-out at City Hall dur- Union members and allies at the students held a spirited noon-time rally wages and benefits of teachers and other ing morning school hours. speak-out also emphasized that the city’s for a living wage for university workers city employees. “If there is one group of people in the situation is a crisis manufactured at the on Feb. 9. Then they marched to the The SEA, an affiliate of the Massa- city of Springfield that is not responsible state level because the city historically campus administration building where chusetts Teachers Association and the for this financial crisis it’s the children in has received less state funding than more they presented a list of 10 demands. On National Education Association, repre- our public schools, and the governor’s affluent and majority-white cities, and March 2 they held another rally, this sents 2,500 teachers and 3,000 retirees. ‘out of control board’ seems intent on bal- thus is at a constant disadvantage in time with AFL-CIO Metro Council ancing the city’s budget at their expense,” meeting its budget needs. President Jos Williams and several An ‘out of control’ board said Collins at the speak-out, addressing Suomala, like her fellow workers, night-shift campus workers. The stu- The supposed mission of the five- teachers wearing green “Helping teach- stresses that a fight-back approach is cor- dents vow to push the Georgetown member Control Board is to make ers teach” T-shirts and “Save Spring- rect but depends on unity and solidarity. Living Wage campaign to a new, more Springfield “solvent.” The board has full field’s Schools” buttons. “We have to instill a spirit of hope,” she militant stage. (Feb. 9 and March 4, control of the municipal budget and said. “We have to believe that if we stick Union City) spending, and its decision-making pow- School system has been starved together we can get through this and ers supersede the mayor and the City Dozens of teachers spoke, many restore our school system to what it used Council, thereby legally side-stepping describing the tall odds they face to edu- to be.” Wal-Mart, elected city officials. But the board mem- cate Springfield’s children, a majority of Catherine Donaghy of the Western bers’ salaries, as well as those of an exec- whom are African American and Latin@. Mass International Action Center said U.S. & Canada utive and assistant director, are paid by In the face of increasing budget cuts, workers and students alike eagerly There are four new developments in the city. many teachers work extra non-paid scooped up hundreds of March 19 the struggle to stop the anti-labor prac- The Massachusetts legislature created hours and purchase supplies with their “Troops Out Now” leaflets connecting the tices of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest the board in early July 2004 through a own money so students can receive an war with workers’ issues. In cities across retailer, which is wallowing in $10.3-bil- bill signed by Gov. Mitt Romney, a adequate education. the U.S., including Springfield, the U.S. lion profits stolen from workers’ wages. Republican. The justification was A Springfield elementary teacher since war on Iraq and the increasing Pentagon The effort to install a Wal-Mart in the Springfield’s deficit of $23 million in last 1978, Sally Suomala, said: “Springfield budget have led to draconian cuts in New York City borough of Queens was year’s annual budget of $442.3 million. schools were very highly rated. My kids social programs and public services. soundly defeated in mid-February by a (www.mass.gov) had opportunities that kids don’t have “The forum was full of energy, and the hefty coalition of labor, community and The composition of the board shows now, like elementary gifted and talented teachers are determined, focused and legislative representatives. the determination of powerful financial programs. Art and music programs are angry about the control board’s actions to There’s been an uproar over the Labor and political interests to protect their now down to the bare bones. In Spring- attack them and all workers in Spring- Department’s investments in the city. field, kids today just don’t have a full, field, union and non-union, and their recent settle- Although SEA president Tim Collins well-rounded program.” communities as well as making the chil- ment of child- sent a letter on behalf of the union invit- According to a recent SEA survey dis- dren suffer. Many of the teachers labor com- ing Control Board members to the speak- tributed at the speak-out, 80 percent of expressed solidarity with the March 19 plaints against out, most didn’t show. Invited but not teachers contemplate leaving the Spring- actions,” said Donaghy. 24 stores in three states. Immigrants march for drivers’ licenses By Mary Owen for immigrants who don’t have Social (NYCPP) and endorsed by 40 immigrant One protest organizer could not attend Jackson Heights, N.Y. Security cards. Some 7,000 licenses have rights, labor and community groups and the event because he lost his license, then already been suspended. Judge Smith unions—including the New York Taxi his delivery job, and was forced to move A hand-lettered sign reading “The Right ruled that immigrants would suffer Workers Alliance, UNITE-HERE Local that day. A small child wore a sign made to Drive Is a Civil Right and an Immigrant wrongful and serious harm under the 100, SEIU-32BJ and New York City Labor from a pizza box that said, “Please let my Worker Right” captured the message of a DMV’s unjust practice. At a hearing sched- Against War. daddy drive me to school.” March 5 protest here by hundreds of uled for April 7, immigrant rights activists “The DMV’s policies, including its col- “People from all immigrant groups are immigrants and their supporters, who will press for a permanent injunction laboration with the Department of coming together in a very historic way to came from some of New York City’s most against the drivers’ license suspensions. Homeland Security to apprehend immi- say that this policy is negatively impacting ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Chants in Spanish, Korean, Bangla, grants, represent one local piece of a everyone’s families, lives and the neigh- Chanting “What do we want? Licenses. Urdu, Hindi, Cantonese and other lan- nationwide trend towards attacking the borhoods where we live and work regard- When do we want them? Now!” protest- guages rang out as protesters moved slowly livelihood of millions of immigrants,” said less of immigration status and country of ers marched for three hours through the over narrow sidewalks after police refused Kavitha Pawria, a legal and policy organ- origin,” said Zahida Pirani, a community multinational Jackson Heights neighbor- to let them march in the street. Along the izer at DRUM. organizer with NYCPP. hood of Queens to demand that Gov. route, workers and customers crowded the Delivery workers, taxi drivers and oth- Miguel Ramirez of Centro Hispano George Pataki and the New York State windows of barbershops, nail salons, ers who need licenses to work, along with Cuzcatlán agreed: “This is a historic event Department of Motor Vehicles stop acting restaurants and other neighborhood store- their families, are suffering under DMV because people from many different as immigration enforcement, denying fronts—nodding, waving their support, policies. At a concluding rally, demonstra- immigrant communities in Queens have them the drivers’ licenses they need to and reaching out the door for leaflets. tors observed two minutes of silence for come together for the first time around a work. The event was sponsored by Centro His- Mirza Panir, an undocumented Bangla- common issue.” On Feb. 17, State Supreme Court Justice pano Cuzcatlán, Desis Rising Up and deshi taxi driver who died two weeks ago Shirley Lin of NICE called on elected Karen S. Smith temporarily restrained Moving (DRUM), New Immigrant Com- from a stress-induced heart attack when officials, Governor Pataki and the DMV to DMV from taking actions that could sus- munity Empowerment (NICE), and the security stopped him at LaGuardia “implement a solution that recognizes our pend nearly 300,000 licenses statewide New York Civic Participation Project Airport. rights.” www.workers.org March 17, 2005 Page 5 pickeT LINE by Sue Davis Supreme Court ruling too late Wal-Mart had agreed to pay $135,540 to settle complaints involving 85 By Gloria Rubac youths without having to admit any Houston wrongdoing. And the Labor Department agreed to give the chain The U.S. Supreme Court has finally 15 days’ notice before investigating bowed to mass and world pressure and Shaka Sankofa any future complaints. The upshot: outlawed the execution of people for The Labor Department’s inspector crimes committed when they were general agreed on Feb. 20 that the minors. While many are rejoicing, this department “was wrong to give Wal- move comes too late for too many. Mart advance notice before investi- Since 1642, the U.S. has executed at gating complaints.” Wal-Mart execu- least 366 persons for offenses they com- tives had contributed heavily to mitted as juveniles. The youngest was cleaners and shot the owner. row newspaper called Endeavor, which President Bush’s re-election. (New James Arcene, a Native child who was 10 Two weeks before he was executed, CNN had a circulation of thousands around the York Times, Feb. 21) years old at the time of his alleged crime. asked McGinnis if the death penalty was a world. He abandoned his slave name in Meanwhile, in Canada on Feb. 25, Since World War II, the youngest was a 14- deterrent to crime. “I didn’t even know the 1995 and became Shaka Sankofa. Quebec’s labor relations board year-old African American, George death penalty existed when I was arrested. By the time of his June 22, 2000, execu- ordered Wal-Mart to stop intimidat- Stinney, who was so small that the over- I was living on the streets, living day to day, tion, Sankofa had supporters on every ing workers in the midst of an organ- sized mask fell off his face while he was trying to breathe. Death penalty? It was on continent, from movie stars to civil rights izing drive by Food and Commercial being electrocuted by the state of South the streets, all the time. I saw it every day leaders to Catholic nuns to members of the Workers’ Local 503. Three cashiers at Carolina. He weighed only 95 pounds. where I grew up. But if I knew about a British parliament and the Texas legisla- the St. Foy store reported various Since the death penalty was reinstated death penalty from the papers or TV, it ture. types of intimidation, including threat in 1976, 22 juveniles have been executed, passed me by. … But now I think about my But his truest supporters were those of a negative job evaluation. This is all in Southern states, 13 of them in Texas. execution all the time, all the time.” When African Americans who saw Sankofa as the second unfair labor practice ruling Of the 22, half were African American. he was executed on Jan. 25, 2000, he was one of them. against Wal-Mart in Quebec since Who were some of these children who 27 years old. Almost 3,000 people gathered in September 2004. (New York Times, were killed? Perhaps the best-known juvenile was Huntsville on June 22, 2000. His step- Feb. 26) When Wal-Mart announced Napoleon Beazley graduated with hon- Shaka Sankofa. This year will mark the mother and daughter, as well as Bianca in mid-February that it would close its ors, was president of his senior class, a star fifth anniversary of his execution. Jaggar, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, store in Jonquiere, Quebec—the only athlete, and active in his church in the Sankofa was born Gary Graham to an were joined by thousands who hoped one where workers have successfully small town of Grapeland, Texas. He had alcoholic father, Willie Graham, and a against hope that then-governor George unionized and were trying to negoti- no criminal record. Yet, succumbing to mentally ill mother, Thelma Griffin. He W. Bush would do the right thing. ate their first contract—the AFL-CIO peer pressure, he was involved in a car was raised by his father and his step- Just as Bush has today become the initiated a petition drive in protest. jacking that ended in murder. Because of mother, Elnora Graham, in an oppressed occupier and executioner of the Iraqi peo- You can sign it at his background, activists felt his case was community in Northeast Houston, amid ple, he executed 152 people while gover- www.unionvoice.org/campaign/ perfect to show that juveniles deserve a extreme poverty. Although his parents nor of Texas. He didn’t care that because walmart_accountable. chance to live and rehabilitate themselves. and stepmother loved him dearly, life was of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death However, Beazley was executed by the difficult. He recalled as a young child hav- Penalty Act, signed by President Bill state of Texas on May 28, 2002. ing to chase and drag his mentally ill Clinton, no court anywhere had ever Defend Social Almost 100 people protested Beazley’s mother home when she took off down a heard the real evidence in Sankofa’s case. execution. Afterward, his family greeted neighborhood street totally nude, while He decided that the movement to free Security supporters and spoke with the media. His neighborhood children laughed at her. Sankofa could not be allowed to succeed. parents, Rena and Ireland, his sister Maria In 1981, he was arrested for robbery and Lying on a gurney awaiting the needle, The Working Families division of and his brother Jamaal had stood by soon afterward charged with the murder Sankofa said, “Know that I love all of you the AFL-CIO has initiated a petition Beazley. They fought until the end, doing of a known drug runner—a charge he for your blessing and strength, for your to stop President Bush’s anti-worker radio and television shows, speaking to ral- always denied. After his court-appointed courage, for your dignity, the way you have scheme to privatize Social Security. lies and urging people to contact the gov- attorney, Ron Mock, gave him absolutely come here tonight, and the way you have Statistics recently computed by The ernor. no defense, Graham was sent to Texas protested. Keep moving forward. Slavery Center for Economic and Policy Glen “Mookie” McGinnis, a gay African death row in 1981. During his 19 years of couldn’t stop us. The lynchings in the Research show that the plan will actu- American youth, dropped out of high confinement, Graham educated himself, South couldn’t stop us. This lynching will ally cost the average worker $152,000 school in 10th grade. He had a difficult evolving from a street kid to an educated not stop us tonight. We will go forward. in retirement benefits. Sign the peti- childhood. His mother had drug problems man and a revolutionary. He participated Our destiny in this country is freedom and tion at www.unionvoice.org/ cam- and was in and out of prison. His grand- in political education on the row, organ- liberation. We will gain it by any means paign/ProtectSocialSecurity. mother raised him. At 17 he robbed a dry ized hunger strikes, and started a death- necessary.” ‘Justice for Jeffrey Baez!’ Make killer cops pay, says community By Alex Gould was knocked over the hood of Cook’s ceedings of his mother’s wrongful death have ever been “right”? How could the Providence, R.I. cruiser. When he slid to the pavement, he suit against the City of Providence, giving officers, and the Providence Police was crushed under the wheels of officer her support as she and her lawyers tried department as a whole, be exonerated The Latin@ community in this area is Michael Otrando’s police car. to break the blue wall of silence and lies for their role as judge, jury and execu- not satisfied with a jury decision rejecting The officers assembled at the scene around her son’s death. tioner when they caught Baez Driving a wrongful death suit brought by the fam- admit that they checked for and found a On the stand, police officers contra- While Latino? Why would police officers ily of Jeffrey Baez. pulse in Baez, whose body was described dicted earlier sworn depositions about engage in a life-threatening chase over Baez was 22 years old on the early in court testimony as “wrapped around their locations and communications on an alleged crime of property? morning of Dec. 4, 2002. He worked at the rear axle.” But no medical rescue was Dec. 4 and admitted to moving the body Why is the threat of public humiliation McDonalds and as a freelance landscap- called. Before dawn, Jeffrey Baez was and the police cruisers, crucial for the and abuse at the hands of police officers ing laborer, and dreamed of being a car- dead. He was unarmed and no weapons scientific reconstruction of the collision, so present in the minds of Black and toonist. Born in New Jersey, he was living were found at the scene. before the official departmental investi- Latin@ youth that, as one DARE activist with his mother, Luz Minerva DiLones, a After more than 24 hours, the police gation. But after three days of testimony, noted at a police brutality committee nurse’s aide, south of Providence. allowed DiLones to see her son’s body, and a brief deliberation interrupted by meeting, they will almost always risk But Baez was unfortunate enough to be through a glass pane at the morgue. “They two fire alarms, the jury found the city of greater harm and arrest by running away? a young Latino man whose van looked to [the cops] don’t think you have feelings,” Providence not liable on March 2. How can there be equal justice under Providence patrolman Merrick Cook like she says, describing her treatment by the DiLones and the entire DARE police the law in a state where immigrant work- one that had been reported stolen. Within Providence police. “They think you are an committee said that their fight for justice ers are denied the right to drive, one in minutes Baez had three police cruisers on animal.” was not over. The police committee every five Black men are denied their right his tail. Baez’s family and the campaign against members are planning a public to vote, and thousands are denied their After driving a few blocks, at what police brutality at DARE (Direct Action response. rights to jobs, housing, health care, and police admitted were low speeds, Baez for Rights and Equality, a grassroots Why was it even necessary to put other vital necessities? stopped the van at the corner of Potters community organization in Providence) Baez’s mother, friends and supporters Only a militant, broad-based struggle and Dexter. The police radioed each other know that his death was no “accident.” through months of expensive procedures for socialism can resolve these burning that he was about to “bail” out of the vehi- DARE members and others concerned to be compensated for his “wrongful questions. cle. Baez stepped into the intersection and with police brutality observed the pro- death”? How could his gruesome killing Gould is a member of DARE. Page 6 March 17, 2005 www.workers.org Thinking about sisters in the struggle By Gloria Verdieu Nine, imprisoned now for over 26 years: capitalism. We can’t just give those bad State. After 10 months in jail, she was Debbie Sims Africa, Janet Holloway capitalists their supper and put them to released and deported to England as an Excerpted from a talk at an Africa, Janine Phillips Africa and Merle bed the way we do with our children. We “undesirable alien.” Soon after arriving in International Women’s Day event Austin Africa, who died in prison in 1998. must fight them.” Lulia Jackson was England, she fell ill and died. Her impris- in San Diego on March 5, sponsored The MOVE Organization advocates active in the bitter Pennsylvania miner onment, deportation and early death by the International Action Center. natural childbirth, feeding children natu- strikes and was familiar with the violence demonstrated the lengths to which ral food, teaching children at home. As perpetrated by the owners. America would go in silencing radical hen we think of sisters in the with the BPP, the women play an impor- Louise Thompson studied Karl Marx Black women. Wstruggle what comes to mind? tant part. and V.I. Lenin and emerged as a leader in Angela Davis’s commitment to the Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida the Harlem Branch of the CPUSA. In the struggle of Black people intensified on B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Septima Black women socialists 1930s her apartment became a forum Sept. 9, 1963, when four Black girls were Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker. Sisters in the struggle also include Black where Black intellectuals and activists dis- murdered in the racist bombing in a Black women of the civil rights move- women who have embraced socialism, the cussed the Bolshevik Revolution and the Baptist church in Birmingham. Denise ment and the Black liberation movement. struggle for self-determination, the strug- party’s position on African Americans in McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Black women were a major part of the gle for a better world for all, for change. the South. In 1932 she went to the Soviet Wesley and Carole Robertson were play- women’s liberation movement. Lucy Parsons, Mabel Byrd, Capitola Union with a group of Black writers and mates of Angela’s sister, Fania. As part of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Tasker, Lulia Jackson, Louise Thompson, actors. Louise was known throughout her militant activism, Angela Davis organ- Southern Christian Leadership Confer- Claudia Jones, Louise Thompson and Harlem as “Madame Moscow” for her sup- ized rallies and demonstrations defending ence (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coor- Angela Davis are just a few. port of Russia. She formed the Friends of the political prisoners known as the dinating Committee (SNCC), NAACP, Lucy Parsons, born in 1853, joined the the Soviet Union. She also worked with Soledad Brothers and she herself became Black Panther Party—all are organizations Socialist Labor Party and fought for the party leaders in ending job discrimination a political prisoner. in which Black women played major roles. rights of labor, Blacks and women until and demanding unemployment relief dur- These are just a few. We are many. Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal her death in 1942. She started as an anar- ing Harlem’s Depression years. We use this month as a spark, but his- devotes a chapter in his recently pub- chist demanding the abolition of all forms Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad and tory should be taught all year long—Black lished book “We Want Freedom” to the of political authority. In the early 1900s became one of the most respected mem- History, Mexican History, Asian History, Panther women. she worked in the radical Chicago Work- bers of the CPUSA. Jones joined after Indigenous people’s history, Women’s Frankye Malika Adams said this about ing Women’s Union and the Socialist working with them in the defense of the History—the People’s History. All people the BPP: “Women ran the BPP pretty Labor Party, and she was one of the first Scottsboro Brothers. She was a firm of all nationalities, all cultures have con- much. I don’t know how it got to be a women to join the International Workers believer in the CPUSA’s political theory tributed to where we are today and we males’ party or thought of as being a males’ of the World (IWW). At the founding con- during that period that Blacks in the South have to continue to acknowledge this. party. Because things, when you really vention of the IWW, Parsons dealt with constituted an oppressed nation, not just We must study our history, what hap- look at it in terms of society, these things the subjugation of women by noting a discriminated race, and consequently pened in our past to help us to move on are looked on as being women things, you “wherever wages are to be reduced, the they had the right to self-determination. to the future. know, feeding children, taking care of the capitalist class uses women to reduce She worked with CPUSA’s sick, and uh, so yeah, we did that. We actu- them.” In 1939 Lucy joined the Commu- Women’s commission and ally ran the BPP’s programs.” nist Party (CPUSA) and spent the last led Harlem’s Council of One of the first women to join the party years of her life building that party during Unemployed. was Tarika Lewis. In her first year of serv- its militant days. An uncompromising ice she advanced in rank and was In 1934 three Black women joined the fighter for black libera- appointed to teach political education U.S. delegation that traveled to Paris for tion, Claudia Jones’s life classes. Regina Jennings, Rosemari the International Women’s Conference. was consumed with strug- Mealy, Kathleen Cleaver, Afeni Shakur Mabel Byrd was elected one of the confer- gle. When corporate (mother of rapper Tupak Shakur) and ence secretaries. Capitola Tasker and Lulia America exploited Black Assata Shakur (exiled in Cuba) are names Jackson stunned the conference with their workers, she fought them. of other women of the BPP. eloquent testimonies about Afro-American She was a militant Safiya Bukhari had this to say about the struggles for human dignity. defender of sharecrop- service of women in the BPP: “In its brief When delegates at the convention pers, domestics and labor- seven-year history (1966-1973) women had called for a “peace” resolution, Lulia ers. She was declared a been involved on every level in the BPP.” thundered, “Ladies, it has just been said criminal during the frenzy When we think of sisters in the struggle that we must not fight, that we must be of the late 1950s. She was the MOVE Organization women come to gentle and kind to our enemies, to those indicted under the fascist mind. Pam Africa, Ramona Africa and the who are for war. I can’t agree with that. Smith Act and sentenced women who are a part of the jailed Move Everyone knows the cause of war, it is to prison in New York Abortion rights under siege in Kansas

By Kathy Durkin records involve adults as well as youth and The clinics’ legal papers raise the possi- were dropped. go far afield of the abortions, and into the bility of government agents intrusively NARAL warns of “the most extensive n outrage is taking place in Kansas. women’s personal histories. appearing at the houses of women who’ve restriction on abortion rights by any state Kansas Attorney General Phill On March 3, Kline, an author of the had abortions, demanding personal infor- in over 10 years” in Michigan, where a new A Kline, a fierce long-time oppo- state’s restrictive abortion laws, admitted mation, thus trampling on their legal law goes into effect at the end of this month. nent of women’s right to choose, has been he was investigating the two clinics for rights to privacy and due process. Although disguised as a prohibition on late- secretly investigating two women’s health performing late-term abortions, and that Women’s reproductive rights and civil term procedures, it threatens to ban nearly clinics and demanding the complete med- doctors could be prosecuted for doing so. liberties’ advocates see a deliberate cam- all abortions, even in the first trimester, ical records of 90 women who had under- (New York Times, March 4) paign of harassment and intimidation of and even when medically necessary. gone abortions. Last October, a local Kansas is one of 31 states that have doctors and women. The Michigan State Medical Society is judge upheld his subpoenas and issued a enacted late-term abortion bans, although NOW President Kim Grandy explains, against the ban because “it endangers gag order forbidding the clinics from noti- it allows the procedures if a woman’s “The Kline controversy is just the latest in women’s health.” fying their patients about the investiga- health is in danger. a series of Bush-emboldened extremist (www.plannedparenthood.org) tions into their personal histories. It is a pivotal state in this struggle. actions by right-wingers—and from The ACLU, Center for Reproductive The situation came to light recently Because abortions are not available in 87 Florida to Iowa to California and Kansas, Rights and Planned Parenthood Fede- when the two facilities, including the percent of U.S. counties, many women we’re seeing unprecedented invasion of ration of America went to federal court in Wichita Women’s Health Care Services, must travel to obtain them. Hundreds of our privacy for political ends. This search- Michigan in early March on behalf of submitted legal briefs to the Kansas State women annually go to the Women’s and-seizure reflex treats women like ‘ter- women’s health clinics, doctors and their Supreme Court stating they would not Health Care Clinic in Wichita, Kan., one of rorists’ instead of women exercising their patients, to try to stop the sweeping abor- comply with these subpoenas and turn the clinics under attack and one of the few constitutional rights.” (www.now.org/news) tion ban. over the medical records sought. Their that provides late-term procedures. Kline is following on the heels of former The Bush gang is using the late-term briefs accused the attorney general of a Kline’s actions are chilling. If state offi- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, abortions issue as an entryway into ban- “‘secret inquisition’ and ‘fishing expedi- cials, not doctors, can review medical who, a year ago, led the Justice Depart- ning all types of abortions—their ultimate tion’ endangering doctor-patient confi- records to determine if the procedures ment charge and subpoenaed 900 medical goal in the war on women’s rights. Their dentiality and women’s constitutional were “medically necessary,” they can then records of women who had undergone anti-reproductive rights stance emboldens rights.” (New York Times, Feb. 25) go on to criminally prosecute doctors and abortions at six medical facilities. But a the forces seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kline claimed to be looking for cases of clinic providers for performing “unneces- strong public campaign and legal struggle the legal right to abortion, which was won statutory rape, although the subpoenaed sary abortions.” pushed Ashcroft back and the subpoenas in 1973 through long, hard struggle. www.workers.org March 17, 2005 Page 7

FIST youth leader: ‘Biology is not destiny!’ By Stephanie Nichols ately either unmarried or without chil- dren, the emphasis differing depending on Excerpted from remarks to a Workers just who you talk to.” World Party International Women’s During a good portion of his remarks he Day event in New York on March 4. tried to make a case that females are only genetically inclined for child rearing and he president of Harvard University, that we’re not capable of handling hard Lawrence Summers, made some work on top of that. disgusting sexist remarks Jan. 14 at T War on women the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Diversifying the While doing some research for this Science & Engineering Workforce. speech, I typed the word “woman” into the He said that the reason such a low per- Google news search.

centage of women graduate college with This is where the word “woman” is used WW speakers shared IWD program with Cuban guests. PHOTO: ROBERTO MERCADO PhD’s compared to men is because “in the most often in the news: “Woman drops special case of science and engineering, indecent assault complaint,” “Mystery of rated, divorced or single, low-income It’s a war on women and children. there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and Derry woman’s abduction,” “Woman, 90, women and women of color are dispropor- particularly of the variability of aptitude, attacked at Montreal metro station,” tionately victims of assault and rape. Sexism: Who profits? and that those considerations are rein- “Woman, 81, beaten to death in home,” Every year approximately 132,000 women During the 1960s and 1970s, women forced by what are in fact lesser factors “Woman cut in the face during theft report they have been victims of rape or were mobilized out on the streets fighting involving socialization and continuing dis- attempt,” “Man held in rape of lost woman, attempted rape; more than half knew their back, not only against the Vietnam War, but crimination.” 24,” “Eyed in wife’s murder, husband attackers. It’s estimated that two to six demanding the right to our own bodies. He was saying that women have a lower nabbed in North Carolina,” “Australian times that many women are raped, but do In comrade Dorothy Ballan’s book, intrinsic aptitude than men when it comes soldiers shoot Iraqi woman and her child not report it. “Feminism and Marxism,” which she to subjects like mathematics and science. while on patrol in Baghdad.” Approximately 17 percent of pregnant wrote during that period, she says, “It is Intrinsic aptitude means one’s inherent Those were articles from just the first women report having been battered, and perfectly obvious that in contemporary ability to understand. two pages of the search results. the results include miscarriages, still- bourgeois society, sexism pervades prac- This is actually part of a “scientific” the- This week the Associated Press ran an births and a two to four times greater like- tically all areas of life. Indeed, sexism has ory called biological determinism [that] article [that] opened, “Ten years after a lihood of bearing a low birth-weight baby. become the predominant feature of bour- basically justifies the class and race struc- landmark UN conference adopted a plat- Domestic violence is the leading cause of geois culture in America, and becomes ture of capitalism. It claims that humans— form aimed at global equality for women, injury to women between 15 and 44 years more so every day. ... their appearance, behavior and even long- the United States is demanding that a dec- of age in the U.S.—more than car acci- “Is it not plain even to the most naïve, term fate—are entirely determined by laration issued by a follow-up meeting dents, muggings and rapes combined. that sexism is a ‘commodity’ in a general genes. Biological determinists disregard make clear that women are not guaran- Abused women are disproportionately system of commodity production and or deny the effects of environmental vari- teed a right to abortion.” represented among the homeless and sui- exchange where profit is the very ables on the expression of a given gene. It It has been almost a year since over a cide victims. Fifty percent of all homeless essence of all that exists?” rules out the discrimination and oppres- million women marched in Washington, women and children are fleeing domestic Right now, while imperialism is on the sion in society, and instead it actually jus- D.C., on April 25 at the March for Women’s violence. brink of possibly losing to the heroic tifies these things. Lives. What has happened in the year The average sentence for the murder of Iraqi resistance; while it pumps billions It also justifies the ruling class by claim- since that march? Most of that movement women [in domestic violence] is only two and billions more dollars into that war ing that they just have better genes than slipped and fell for the Democratic Party. to six years in prison. The average prison alone, it is trying more and more ways to everyone else. It justifies lower wages for We are living in a time when most sentence for a woman who kills her inti- steal from our class in order to keep fuel- women because we’re supposedly geneti- women and children don’t have access to mate partner is 15 years. Sixty-three per- ing its empire. cally inferior. decent health care. We still don’t have cent of young men between the ages of 11 Capitalism is in a crisis. Biological determinism is the same the- equal pay or equal access to decent jobs, and 20 who are serving time for homicide Now, more than ever, it must be our ory that the Ku Klux Klan uses. either. Women make up more than 60 have killed their mothers’ abusers. objective to fight back. Just as sexism And it was actually taught as a required percent of workers who earn minimum And there are some starling new sta- pervades all areas of life under capitalist course at Harvard University up until the wage, which amounts to only a little over tistics put out by the Justice Department society, we must fight back against it in early 1980s. $10,000 per year before taxes. in December about the number of all areas of our work [and in] the move- President Summers, a former chief The inequality and inferiority created women in prison, which has been ment, as well. economist at the World Bank and former by capitalism also breeds violence against increasing dramatically over the past Our party has a revolutionary history U.S. Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, women. Every nine seconds, a woman is decade. Just over 101,000 women served in this struggle. And we must keep that also stated during this conference that being beaten in the United States. Nearly in prison last year. The incarceration of struggle alive, smash this oppressive sys- “The relatively few women who are in the two out of every five women in the U.S. women is growing much faster than tem as a whole and guarantee the basic highest-ranking places are disproportion- have been physically or sexually assaulted men. Since 1995, the total number of human rights and needs to an education, sometime during their lives. women in prison has jumped 48 percent, health care, a decent job and equality— Young women, women who are sepa- largely due to the so-called war on drugs. with socialism. Beginning under Clinton’s presidency and increasing during Bush’s, legisla- tures are capitulating to right-wing forces by enacting varied laws restricting abor- Palestinian ‘Women in Struggle’ tions. From 1995-2004, 409 anti-abor- tion restrictions have been enacted. n a new one-hour documentary, four (www.naral.org) Palestinian women tell their stories of with- standing unimaginably brutal torture and long The Bush forces seek to push back all I years of imprisonment by Israel for the reproductive rights, including birth con- “crime” of wanting to free their people and trol, emergency contraception and public their land from the U.S.-backed Israeli school sex education. It is part of their state. “Women in Struggle” was overall attempt to wipe out the political, made by Palestinian filmmaker Buthina Canaan Khoury. social and economic gains and rights won . through decades of struggle by a broad The women, who were imprisoned at different times L M range of progressive movements. since the 1970s, talk about F I Pro-choice, health-care and civil liber- their experiences against the ties’ organizations are fighting back background of the difficulties and against the right-wing attacks on women’s suffering of daily life today for the Palestinian rights. They are showing that adamant, people— including the long lines to go through forceful opposition in the streets, in the Israeli army checkpoints and the huge apartheid courts and everywhere is the only way to wall being built. More than 7,600 Palestinian political prison- push back the reactionary forces and ers are currently being detained by Israel and secure the legal right to abortion. 108 of them are women. Filmmaker Khoury dis- Any equivocating on the part of politi- cussed their plight at the International Action cians, including leaders in the Democratic Center in New York after a showing of the film Party like Hillary Clinton, or any false on March 1. The standing-room crowd was notion that the ultra-right can be expected moved, outraged and inspired. to “compromise” on reproductive rights is Khoury is currently touring the U.S. showing “Women in Struggle.” For the schedule of show- a dead end. The only way to stop them is ings see www.womeninstruggle.com. Palestinian holds photo of her martyred daughter. united mass action and struggle. —Marsha Goldberg Page 8 March 17, 2005 www.workers.org Eyewitness Falluja: An Iraqi view of the U.S. attack Mohammad J. Haded was one of the corresponds to international conventions. the resistance, they would never have mosque we had set up a small outpatient few physicians who remained in It is not, however, by any means legal to released us physicians again. clinic. Falluja, Iraq, during the November bombard civilians. That is permitted nei- At the same time as the occupation of Up until today the central hospital is 2004 attack by U.S. troops. The German ther to the Americans nor to opponents of the hospital, the bombardment of the surrounded by U.S. soldiers. Patients daily Junge Welt published an interview the occupation. entire city began. The detonations were to must come on foot. Whoever comes by with him on Feb. 26, conducted by Many Iraqis are of the opinion that the be heard clearly. Even rescue cars were passenger car is fired at. Rüdiger Göbel. Below are excerpts attacks on civilians are not the responsi- attacked. First inhabitants tried to bring Some people had stayed in Falluja translated from the German by WW bility of the resistance, but that in the long the wounded with their passenger cars because they had no relatives in Baghdad managing editor John Catalinotto. run the Americans and the secret services into a hospital. But everything that moved with whom they could find accommoda- of the neighboring countries are behind on the roads was fired on. tion. Others were ashamed to be in tents About 5,000 families—about 25,000 to them. It is similar with Musab al-Zarkawi, We finally established a field hospital in living like refugees. Others would gladly 30,000 Iraqis—remained during the U.S. with whose existence the Americans justi- the eastern part of Falluja. In principle it have fled, but had no car. However, most major offensive in November in Falluja, fied the attacks on Falluja. Where is al- was no more than an outpatient clinic. We of those who remained simply could not the rest of the inhabitants having fled. Zarkawi today? He is a phantom, who gave the exact location of the building to imagine that the Americans would fight Meanwhile some returned. We estimate manages to show up exactly where he can the Americans. Two days later it was with such a rage. They did not believe that that about 20 percent of the population of be used. It doesn’t matter if it is in Kirkuk, bombed, so this emergency station was the U.S. soldiers would bomb and shoot Falluja returned. Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra, Ramadi, Baghdad thus lost. We finally established a second directly at civilians and at whole families. Apartments and houses that were not or Basra—everywhere, where there is emergency-aid clinic, which was actually Fighters, yes, but unarmed people, women, destroyed directly by U.S. bombs were resistance, al-Zarkawi manages to emerge not functional. We had practically nothing children, wounded people, old people? devastated later. Furniture was smashed where he is useful. there. Water and electricity were turned I arranged with the U.S. forces to have into little pieces. Besides, innumerable The city hospital lies in the west and is off, and the telephone no longer worked. a small group of volunteers from the 200 houses were purposefully set on fire. Even separated by the Euphrates from the city The conditions were catastrophic and people in the mosque gather the dead bod- schools and hospitals were destroyed. itself. Between seven and eight in the nevertheless we operated on 25 wounded ies from the roads. An outbreak of epide- Still today corpses are found under the evening [of Nov. 8, 2004, when the major people there. We had no medicines, how- mics was threatened, and the smell of rubble of destroyed houses. An unknown attack called “Dawn” began—JC], U.S. sol- ever, and the wounds became infected. For decay was terrible. These volunteers told number of dead people were thrown by the diers encircled and occupied the 200-bed all practical purposes the patients lay in me later that many women and children U.S. troops into the Euphrates River. The hospital. At the time about 30 patients their death beds. Those with major injuries as well as old people were among the vic- U.S. Army announced that 1,200 people were still in the hospital. Although there were lost. In the surrounding houses we tims. had been killed. We ourselves pulled out was no resistance and also no fighters looked for volunteers who helped us with People [in Falluja] hate the Americans— and then buried more than 700 corpses. were being treated, the physicians and the cleaning up and to wash away the blood. Americans generally, not only U.S. sol- Beyond that we cannot give accurate data. maintenance personnel, 22 persons, were My 13-year-old son was among the helpers. diers. They are occupiers, killers and ter- We have innumerable pictures and also immediately arrested. We were thrown to After seven days I went to the Amer- rorists. Almost every family in Falluja has films, on which you can see who was killed the ground, bound and later interrogated. icans. I asked to be allowed to drive with to mourn a victim; how can you expect any in Falluja. I invite everyone to come into We were told we would have to vacate the a car and a white flag through the roads other reaction there? our city. I can bring you together with chil- hospital, patients as well as the caregivers. and to gather the remaining inhabitants in Even if it doesn’t look that way at first dren who had to watch their parents being Afterwards the hospital was wiped out, a mosque. In one hour I had collected sight, in the long run the Americans lost shot by Americans. And I will bring you even the medical instruments were about 50 people from their homes, in Falluja. Which else does it mean when together with men who saw how their chil- destroyed. approximately 10 families. Two days later an Empire uses all its power to attack what dren and their wives were killed. The Americans were inside, looked there were 200 Iraqis in the mosque. is a small city, without any moral scruples? There was and there still is resistance in through everything, and asked us again Some told me that American soldiers had That is the beginning of the end. Iraq and also in Falluja. The resistance and again where the terrorists were hid- purposely fired their weapons at families, Further information: against the occupation is legitimate and ing. If they had found someone there from even those holding white flags. Also in the www.iraktribunal.de. Anti-imperialism strong in Lebanon Huge rally dwarfs ‘Gucci Revolution’ Continued from page 1 war. It became part of an Arab Deterrent For example, the BBC news of March 3 known in Ukraine and other places where from abroad: Are these hundreds of thou- Force authorized at Arab summit meet- said that the “Cedar Revolution” was certain NGOs provide a cover for imperi- sands of people puppets? Is all this crowd ings in that year. being referred to as a “mini-Ukraine.” alist subversion. agents for the Syrians and intelligence The civil war, fomented by French and They described it as follows: “Some peo- These reactionary forces have respon- agencies?” ( AP, March 8) U.S. imperialism and Tel Aviv, lasted ple here are jokingly calling the phenom- ded to the anti-Syria, anti-Hezbollah until 1989, when it was settled under the enon ‘the Gucci revolution’—not because offensive launched by the occupying Hezbollah a national liberation protection of Syrian troops. A national they are dismissive of the demonstrations, butchers of Iraq in Washington and for- movement accord was created called the Taif but because so many of those waving the mer colonialists in Paris who once ruled Hezbollah is a mass organization of the Accord of 1989. Lebanese flag on the street are really Lebanon and Syria. Shiite population, which is the poorest The current Bush administration, in unlikely protesters.” Their social base lies mainly in the sector of Lebanese society and was tradi- league with French imperialism and with “There are girls in tight skirts and high Maronite Christian and Druze political tionally excluded and discriminated the support of the feudo-capitalist oil heels, carrying expensive leather bags, as forces. These forces were described by against. It provides social services, has monarchy of Saudi Arabia and compliant well as men in business suits or trendy ten- Fadi Agha, the foreign policy adviser to members in parliament and maintains it capitalist regime of Hosni Mubarak in nis shoes. Lebanese President Emil Lahoud, in an own armed force of 20,000. Egypt, launched an all-out offensive to “And in one unforgettable scene an eld- interview: “I would add that many of the Organized in 1984 out of scattered attack and isolate Syria after the assassi- erly lady, her hair all done up, was leaders of the so-called Cedar Revolution groups of resistance to Israeli occupiers, it nation of the former prime minister of demonstrating alongside her Sri Lankan (a term coined in Washington) are those created an armed organization of national Lebanon, Rafik al-Hariri, in February. The domestic helper, telling her to wave the who took Lebanon to 17 years of civil resistance which fought the Israeli occu- U.S. and the reactionary forces in Lebanon flag and teaching her the Arabic words of strife. ... These are the same warlords, pation of southern Lebanon and finally tried to frame up Syria for the killing and the slogans.... sectarian barons and opportunists who drove them out in 2000. For this it is took the political initiative to demand the “But what has been fascinating to led us once before to ruin.” revered, not only in Lebanon but through- withdrawal of Syrian forces from observe is how Lebanon’s middle and (CounterPunch, March 5/6) out the Arab world. Lebanon. upper classes have been woken from their It is the largest, most organized and dis- usual lethargy by the assassination of Three elections, three occupations ciplined political force in Lebanon and is A ‘Gucci Revolution’ Hariri.” In an outrageously arrogant statement, popularly regarded as a national liberation The capitalist media had made a cause A Reuters dispatch of March 8 was in a U.S. President George W. Bush has organization, essential to holding the célèbre out of earlier demonstrations in similar vein. Reporting on one of the tent demanded that “All Syrian military forces Zionist occupiers at bay. It has been Martyrs’ Square that were organized on camps in Martyrs’ Square of the forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw labeled a “terrorist organization” by the the model of the pro-imperialist demonstra- echoing imperialism’s demand for Syrian before the Lebanese elections [in May— U.S. government, which has demanded tions in Serbia, Georgia and the Ukraine and withdrawal, it was described as “a home F.G.] for those elections to be free and that it be disarmed. dubbed the “Cedar Revolution.” from home where protesters, most of fair.” (Reuters, March 8) Syria has supported Hezbollah as well Those demonstrations, tiny by compar- them westernized, middle-class students, But a million people have given the lie as other organizations fighting for the lib- ison to the one called by Hezbollah, had study, eat, drink, sleep and even work on to Bush by voting with their feet in Riyadh eration of Palestine and against the Israeli such an obviously reactionary class and their laptops.” They were being given Solh Square. They made it clear they are occupation. Syria sent troops to Lebanon political character that they were an tents, blankets and mineral water by “for- against U.S. imperialist attempts to divide in 1976 at the request of the Lebanese gov- embarrassment, even to the capitalist eign organizations.” the Syrian and Lebanese people and set ernment to separate combatants in a civil media covering them. These foreign organizations are well the stage for either a civil war in Lebanon, www.workers.org March 17, 2005 Page 9

U.S. troops couldn't kill the truth Uproar in Italy after attack on journalist

By John Catalinotto Role of the Italian government Since then at least 63 journalists have yelling that we were Italians. ‘We are The right-wing government headed by died in Iraq. CNN chief news executive Italians, we are Italians.’ Nicola Calipari Will the Pentagon get away with mur- media magnate Silvio Berlusconi has Eason Jordan said at the Davos meeting threw himself on me to protect me and der again? Or will the U.S. gunfire that aligned Italy’s foreign policy with that of on Jan. 27 in Switzerland that perhaps a immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard killed a top Italian intelligence agent and the U.S. and the Bush administration. He dozen weren’t just collateral damage but his last breath as he was dying on me.” nearly killed journalist Giuliana Sgrena has kept 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq— were killed on purpose by U.S. fire. That No checkpoint, no lights, no warning. arouse a mass movement in Italy that mostly away from the combat zone— remark cost him his job. Another SISMI agent, who had been driv- forces the government to pull its troops despite the overwhelming opposition of U.S. military authorities have even ing the car, backed up her story. Even the out of Iraq? the Italian population to the U.S. war blamed media coverage for the Army’s fail- Italian government agreed and demanded That would be the most important out- there. His government is vulnerable on the ure to recruit new volunteers. According to an investigation and an explanation from come of these criminal acts by the U.S. war issue as well as economic issues, but the New York Times of March 4, “Top the U.S. The Italian foreign minister, military in what has been a criminal war so far he has managed to stay in office Pentagon officials acknowledged that the Gianfranco Fini, the head of a neo-fascist and a criminal occupation. A look at the since he won the 2001 elections. graphic images of casualties from Iraq and party, refuses to allow that the U.S. might background will help in following the Had he succeeded in using the Italian the obvious danger of serving there had have ambushed the Italians, but even he events as they develop. state power to bring Sgrena back to Italy caused many parents to advise their chil- demands something more than the utter Sgrena, a journalist for the progressive unharmed, Berlusconi would have dren to avoid joining the military now.” contempt Washington has offered its Italian daily, Il Manifesto, had been writ- emerged in as good a political position as In Sgrena’s case, the Pentagon consid- Italian ally. ing articles from Iraq until early possible under the circumstances. He ered her a communist reporter, causing Sgrena’s partner, Pierre Scolari, sug- February. Her articles reported U.S. occu- would have shown mercy for a political trouble for them in Iraq. Sgrena herself has gested the incident was intentional. “I pation atrocities inflicted on the Iraqis. enemy and independence from his U.S. given two reasons why U.S. forces might hope the Italian government does some- She wrote of the horrible treatment of allies regarding Italian affairs. Italy’s for- have deliberately targeted her. First, thing because either this was an ambush, Iraqi prisoners, what appeared to be the eign intelligence service, SISMI, was given because she had information for a story as I think, or we are dealing with imbeciles U.S. use of napalm in Falluja, and the the responsibility of arranging the turn- that they would not want to see published. or terrorized kids who shoot at anyone,” deaths of many obvious non-combatants over of Sgrena. Second, to punish the Italian government he said. there. SISMI has a history of working hand-in- for negotiating with the Iraqi resistance It’s true that hundreds if not thousands On Feb. 4 she was kidnapped by a hand with the CIA against socialist coun- over possible ransom payments. of Iraqis have been killed by troops at resistance group named “Mujahedin tries or against rebellious countries in the Sgrena’s captors had warned her that roadblocks who were frightened that the without Borders.” Sgrena’s own report “Third World.” In this case, the SISMI the U.S. forces didn’t want her to return next car bomb might get them, and whose was that her kidnappers believed she was agent in charge of the operation, Nicola safely to Italy: “They declared that they orders of engagement allow the murder of a spy, as she was asking everyone ques- Calipari, was the one to make arrange- were committed to the fullest to freeing civilians. But it’s also true that the U.S., tions. In the course of the month they held ments for Sgrena’s release with the Iraqi me, but I had to be careful—’the Amer- which was in control of the airport and the her captive, Sgrena appeared on a video resistance, something Washington looks icans don’t want you to go back.’” only road to it, knew that Sgrena had been pleading for her release and asking the unkindly upon. Calipari wound up killed by released and that a special plane was wait- What happened on the road? Italian government to withdraw its troops U.S. troops within a mile of the Baghdad ing to take off for Italy within minutes. from Iraq. airport and the plane back to Rome. After the shooting on the airport road, More damning information is expected to A movement grew up in Italy to the Pentagon claimed that the car had come out. demand her release, along with that of U.S. forces and journalists been speeding toward a checkpoint, that Italians are honoring Sgrena on French journalist Florence Aubenas and In Iraq, the U.S. military has tolerated U.S. troops had flashed lights warning the International Women’s Day, March 8, and an Iraqi driver, Hussein Hanoun. The journalists as long as they were “embed- car to stop, that the driver ignored their there have been vigils and sit-ins at the movement that made these demands on ded,” that is, as long as what they saw was signals and that they only then peppered U.S. Embassy in Rome and consulates in the Iraqi resistance forces was also controlled by the U.S. generals. Others the car with hundreds of rounds. The story other cities. A mass demonstration is set against the war. Millions of Italians iden- have faced more than the usual dangers. sounded as unlikely as the one told by the for March 19 in Rome against the occupa- tified with Sgrena both on human terms, On April 8, 2003, U.S. tank fire killed New York City undercover cops who killed tion and war. It is these actions that will as happens when someone in danger is Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and a Amadou Diallo. They claimed he pulled a determine if Berlusconi follows the reported on daily, and because she was a Spanish television network Telecinco wallet that looked like a weapon before Spanish ex-Prime Minister José María courageous anti-war journalist. cameraman, Jose Couso, in the Palestine they fired 41 shots. Aznar into the dustbin of history for his On Feb. 19, some half-million people Hotel in Baghdad. The same day, Al- “I only remember fire,” Sgrena wrote. support of U.S. aggressive wars. demonstrated in Rome demanding the Jazeera television reporter Tariq Ayoub “At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit To read Sgrena’s articles in English, see release of Sgrena and the withdrawal of was killed on the other side of the Tigris us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/. Italian troops from Iraq. River by a rocket fired from a plane. of a few minutes earlier. The driver started

the overthrow of the Syrian government, administration is opposed to. Severe sanctions were applied to Syria by overturn the Lebanese government and or both. In fact, the Bush administration’s Washington under this act. get it to sign a separate peace with Israel, The hypocrisy of Bush to demand an demand for withdrawal of Syrian troops In watered-down form, resolution 1559 setting the stage for “regime change” in end to foreign forces in order to have “free under the terms of UN resolution 1559, calls for both Syrian withdrawal and the Syria. But the mass demonstration in and fair elections” is beyond measure. The passed in September 2004, is part of disarming of Hezbollah. According to the Beirut against U.S.-French-Israeli inter- U.S. has just engineered an election in Iraq Washington’s design to disarm Hezbollah, Reuters dispatch, “Nasrallah said he had ference under the guise of the UN resolu- under the guns of 150,000 troops, after thus diminishing the resistance to a U.S. no problem with a Syrian pullout under tion shows that Washington has made the killing over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, jailing intervention in the region and opening up the 1989 Taif Accord that ended same monumental miscalculation in and killing resistance fighters in the thou- the door for renewed Israeli aggression Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, but would Lebanon that it made in Iraq. It totally dis- sands, and running the country from U.S. against Lebanon. have no truck with a UN resolution counted the role of the anti-colonial military headquarters and the U.S. Bush has not mentioned one word adopted September that called for a Syrian masses and their determination and Embassy. about the occupation of Syria’s Golan withdrawal and militia disarmament.” capacity for resistance. Last year Washington stage-managed Heights by Israel, territory taken by con- The Taif Accord is an agreement Bush was deceived by momentary polit- an election in Afghanistan after bombing quest in the 1967 war of aggression against between the two governments and calls for ical victories in getting his imperialist jun- the country mercilessly, sending in occu- Egypt and Syria, which Washington sup- eventual Syrian withdrawal of troops to be ior partner in France to collaborate and pation forces and rounding up German ported. Bush has not said one word about negotiated between them. The mass getting the collaboration of bourgeois ele- and other NATO imperialist powers to enforcing the piles of UN resolutions con- demonstration in Beirut was called in ments in Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. occupy the capital and surrounding demning the Israeli occupation of the front of UN offices there to make the point But that was the upper crust of society in regions. The elections in the West Bank West Bank and Gaza. that Lebanon is fighting for its sovereignty the Middle East, which has a material class and Gaza were carried out with the guns and any withdrawal must be under an interest in collaborating. Now the lower of the Israeli military in the background, Syrian withdrawal and national agreement signed by the Lebanese gov- stratum of society has spoken in Lebanon, armed to the teeth by the Pentagon. sovereignty ernment with Syria and not at the com- just as it is speaking the language of resist- Three elections under three occupa- But Washington has suddenly focused mand and under the terms dictated by ance in Iraq and Palestine. Bush and the tions by imperialist oppressors—and Bush its attention on and become a determined Washington, Tel Aviv (silently), Paris or Pentagon are courting an expanded disas- wishes to ignore them. Whatever the prob- advocate of UN resolution 1559. That is other European imperialists. ter in the Syrian-Lebanon region if they lems with the Syrian military presence in because this resolution is a toned-down It also makes clear that Hezbollah will mistake governments for the masses. Lebanon, Syria is not an imperialist replica of the Syrian Accountability and not accept any UN-mandated disarma- The anti-war movement should add the oppressor garnering super-profits from Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of ment. Hezbollah is repeatedly described slogans of “U.S. hands off Syria” and Lebanon. Whatever national advantages 2003, in which the U.S. Congress as a terrorist militia. It is nether terrorist “Hands off Lebanon” to its demand to end Syria gains from being in Lebanon, it also demanded not only that Syria remove its nor a militia. It is an armed national liber- the occupations in Iraq and Palestine. functions as a defender of Hezbollah and troops from Lebanon, but that Hezbollah ation movement dedicated to fighting That is the only way to safeguard the inter- the national liberation forces in the coun- and all organizations waging the armed imperialism and Zionism. ests of the oppressed and the workers in try and as a barrier to aggression by the struggle for Palestinian liberation and The Bush administration is trying to the Middle East and right here at home. Israeli settler state. That is what the Bush against Israeli aggression be disarmed. Page 10 March 17, 2005 www.workers.org Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army Mau Mau against The tiniest victims the British Empire ost people on the planet three major causes of neonatal deaths are aware of the U.S. war are infections: sepsis, pneumonia, By Stephen Millies the KCA in London and didn’t return to Kenya Mand occupation against diarrhea, and tetanus (accounting for until 1946. Pan African leader George Iraq. And the vast majority of the 36 percent of deaths); premature birth Has any liberation movement been more Padmore, then an organizer for the world’s population are against this (28 percent); and problems related to slandered than Kenya’s Land and Freedom Communist International, influenced him. brutal, illegal war. But a war of a dif- complications during childbirth (23 Army, usually referred to as the Mau Mau? Kenyatta also studied briefly in Moscow. ferent kind is getting very little media percent). Infections are the major This term is still used by racists as a club to “When the missionaries arrived, the attention, even though it is just as cause of death after the first week of attack Black people. Africans had the land and the missionaries brutal. life.” (OneWorld.net, March 3) Right-wing columnist Ann Coulter, out- had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our It is a war against not just children Some of the solutions offered to raged that Halle Berry won an Oscar in 2002, eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they but newborns. It is a crime against stop neonatal deaths include two complained that this Black artist had had the land and we had the Bible,” humanity of gigantic proportions. 20-cent anti-tetanus injections dur- “successfully mau-maued her way observed Kenyatta. According to the March 3 publica- ing pregnancy, exclusive breastfeed- to a Best Actress Award.” book Catholic and Protestant mis- tion of the highly respected interna- ing, clean delivery and antibiotics. Former Vice President Daniel review sionaries were as indispensable as tional medical journal, The Lancet, “At less than one dollar per capita Quayle’s chief of staff, William Maxim guns to British colonialism. the deaths of 3 million newborns per year in additional spending to Kristol, said Carol Mosely Braun An Anglican bishop wrote the racist worldwide—that’s 10,000 each day— provide these life-saving interven- “mau-maued” the U.S. Senate when, as the Beecher Report. could be prevented if the poorer, tions to 90 percent of mothers and only African American woman member in the However, Kenya’s freedom fighters developing countries had easy access babies, the cost is affordable,” said Senate’s history, she stopped a charter included Christians. Muslims also joined the to technologically advanced research Gary Darmstadt, an advisor with renewal for the United Daughters of the liberation struggle. But the official churches and health care for preventable dis- Save the Children USA, one of the Confederacy. lined up British-appointed “chiefs” and their eases associated with neonatal care. study’s architects. Thousands of Mau Mau guerrillas wrote a followers to be informers against the Mau An additional 1 million more While solutions to this genocidal heroic chapter in the book of liberation with Mau. babies die within the first month of war on babies certainly exist, they their blood. As with the French in Algeria, it being born under similar conditions. require not just resources but the was the armed struggle in Kenya that com- Army smashes general strike So in total, 4 million deaths of babies eradication, root and branch, of the pelled the British imperialists to grant inde- Many Kikuyu people became sharecrop- could easily be avoided. economic system that breeds poverty, pendence to their African colonies. pers or laborers on white farms, often on the Most of these deaths occur in war and racism. That system is capi- At last, two new books by British scholars same soil that had been stolen from their fam- former colonial countries, mainly in talism and is based on making profits, expose the atrocities the colonial regime com- ilies. Others were forced off the land alto- Africa, Asia and Latin America. not meeting human needs. mitted in suppressing this freedom struggle: gether. “Virtually all (99 percent of deaths) If tiny socialist Cuba can sustain “Imperial Reckoning” by Caroline Elkins and The population of the capital city, Nairobi, occur in low- and middle-income the lowest infant mortality rate in all “Histories of the Hanged” by David Anderson. doubled between 1938 and 1948. countries, yet most research, publica- of Latin America, just imagine what a Queen Victoria’s British Empire declared a As early as 1930 police shot down strikers tions, and funding focus on high-tech socialist world could do to insure that “protectorate” over Kenya and Uganda in at the Uplands Bacon factory and jailed their care for the 1 percent of deaths that every human being has a bright 1895. What was being protected was the theft leaders. A Kenyan working class was being occur in rich countries,” the study future, beginning as a healthy new- of the best farmland by a few British settlers. formed. By 1948 there were 385,000 African stated. born. Let’s not just imagine it, but Among them was Lord Delamere, who stole wage workers; their average annual income The study went on to say that “the fight until it becomes real. 160,000 acres. was $73. Machine guns and bayonets forced African British imperialism press-ganged 75,000 people into “native reserves” modeled on Kenyans to fight in World War II. Among Indian reservations in the United States. They them was Waruhiu Itote, who was to become weren’t allowed to grow coffee or other com- known as the Mau Mau’s “General China.” Anti-woman mercial crops. As in South Africa under Like Vietnam veteran Geronimo ji Jaga, apartheid, Africans were forced to carry who defended the Los Angeles Black Panther scheme fails passes. Party office against police attack, or American Kenya’s Kikuyu people, who farmed some Indian Movement leaders who liberated of the most fertile land in the country’s cen- Wounded Knee, these Kenyan vets put their t’s the same approach the slicker ever, they struck a rock. Women from tral section, were particularly affected. military skills to good use. money-grubbing corporations all over the world spoke out forcefully “We have stolen his land,” confessed Col. While stationed in India, Itote learned from I have. Hire a few women execu- against the U.S. position. No one sup- Ewart Grogan, a white settler. “Now it is time an African American GI about how Haitians tives and PR spokespeople at fancy ported it. Finally, the arrogant impe- to steal his limbs.” (Walter Rodney, “How had risen in a slave insurrection and defeated salaries and then you can better put rialists pulled back and the world’s Europe Underdeveloped Africa”) Napoleon’s armies. He could see for himself over rapacious policies that hurt, women celebrated their victory. Compulsory labor was required of African that Britain was forced to depart India and underpay and degrade women and It’s a sign of the times. The women and men. Pakistan in 1947. After the war, the future workers in general. The tobacco com- momentum toward U.S. imperialist Building a 582-mile railroad from the “General China” worked as a locomotive fire- panies did it. The drug companies fol- world domination that seemed so Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to Lake man in Nairobi’s railroad yards. lowed suit. Women, it seems, are strong after the collapse of the USSR Victoria was key to the exploitation. Some Kenyatta became president of the Kenyan more believable, even when they’re has been broken by the heroic Iraqi 30,000 workers from British-occupied India African Union on June 1, 1947. Trade union- just reading the scripts of the sexist resistance. The Pentagon’s efforts to were used. Some 10,000 died or were maimed ists were some of the KAU’s most militant ruling class. crush that resistance are alienating a in the process. leaders. The Bush administration thought it whole new generation here and Occupation sparked resistance. On March Fred Kubai organized Nairobi’s taxi drivers could do it, too. Big mistake. When abroad, just as during the Vietnam 14, 1922, police gunfire crushed a rally of and became secretary of the Transport and the UN Commission on the Status of War. 8,000 Africans in Nairobi, called to protest Allied Workers’ Union. Bildad Kaggia was a Women set up meetings in New York Liberation struggles are once again the exiling of Kikuyu leader Harry Thuku. leader of the Clerks and Commercial Workers 10 years after the Beijing Women’s on the rise, most notably in Latin White settlers standing on the Norfolk Union. The British would jail both Kubai and Conference, Washington aggressively America and the Middle East. A simi- Hotel’s porch joined in the shooting. Fifty- Kaggia together with Kenyatta. tried to put over its thoroughly reac- lar political climate spurred on the eight Africans were murdered. Along with Makhan Singh, Kubai and tionary agenda on women’s issues. women’s movements of the 1960s Supporters of this movement formed the Kaggia founded the East African Trade Union Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, who and 1970s, and it can happen again. Kikuyu Central Association in the mid-1920s. Congress on May Day, 1949. The next May says that most women’s groups in the This time, women and people of color Jomo Kenyatta, later to be independent Day the EATUC issued a call for independ- U.S. are in a liberal conspiracy to are much more prominent as leaders Kenya’s first prime minister and president, ence and majority rule. destroy the family, headed a team of of the anti-war and social justice became editor of the KCA’s monthly newspa- The British imperialist government, conservatives who demanded lan- movements. per, Muigwathania, in 1928. administered by the social-democratic Labor guage be added to the 1995 Beijing Nevertheless, women in this coun- Schools became a battleground. “Illiterates Party, immediately arrested these union lead- agreement to explicitly exclude abor- try are facing new attacks on repro- with the right attitude to manual employment ers. In response 100,000 Kenyan workers tion from the definition of women’s ductive rights as well as an anti- are preferable to products of the schools,” joined a general strike. rights. worker offensive. They’ll bear the declared the official Beecher Report on Nairobi was paralyzed for nine days. Only It was an attempt to hijack the con- brunt of social service cuts mandated Kenyan education in 1949. At the time, three a mobilization of the army and police broke ference on women’s equality, which by the military-industrial-banking high schools admitted a total of 100 African this strike. wanted to discuss implementing pro- complex so the war machine can be students annually. EATUC president Fred Kubai was jailed for grams to ameliorate poverty and poor expanded. An independent school movement blos- eight months. General Secretary Makhan health among women. When the U.S. It’s encouraging to know that the somed in the late 1920s. By 1952, some Singh was detained without trial for 11 years. delegates tried to insert an anti-abor- women of the world are unanimously 50,000 students attended 300 African-con- Their jailing symbolized the unity of tion section into the one-page state- in solidarity with our struggles to beat trolled schools. The KCA founded the Kenyan workers of Asian and African origin ment that re-asserted the Beijing back this right-wing attack. Githunguri Teachers’ Training College. against colonialism. Conference’s final declaration, how- Kenyatta went abroad in 1929 to represent Next: Freedom by any means necessary. www.workers.org March 17, 2005 Page 11 Haitians challenge Bush’s death-squad ‘democracy’ By Deirdre Griswold Today, members of the former tion in many quarters. Aristide government languish in dun- Perhaps in reaction to this strong criti- While U.S. television news drones on geons called prisons. Demonstrators are cism over their role, which also was endlessly about President George W. fired on and killed by police. Life in the expressed by many Brazilians at last Bush’s new initiatives to spread democ- poorest country in the Western Hemi- month’s World Social Forum in Porto racy and liberty in the world, the people sphere has gotten even worse. Corpses Alegre, the Brazilian troops on March 4 of Haiti have already tasted his offering pile up by the roadsides and mortality accompanied another pro-Aristide demo- and are spitting it out. from all causes is staggeringly high. nstration, this time of 2,000 people, One year ago, the U.S. overthrew the But to hear Washington tell it, Haiti is through the streets of the Haitian capital. Haitians march though Bel Air to mark elected government of President Jean- now on the road to democracy. The police did not attack this time. The International Women’s Day and to Bertrand Aristide and spirited him and When 2,000 unarmed supporters of demonstrators called for an end to the support Aristide. his family out of the country to make way Aristide tried to march through Port au U.S.-backed “interim” government. for Bush’s appointed “democratic” Prince on Feb. 28, demanding the return More than 400 people have been tion to Haiti in early March. She visited leader, Gerard Latortue. of their kidnapped president, they were killed in the capital since Aristide loyal- former Prime Minister Yves Neptune in Elevated along with Latortue were fired on by police. At least two were ists began intensifying their demands for the prison where he is conducting a returning death squad members and for- killed and 20 wounded. United Nations the president’s return four months ago. hunger strike and pronounced the con- mer police known for brutalizing and troops at the scene, commanded by (AP, March 4) The vast majority mur- ditions there “deplorable.” horribly repressing the people in the Brazilian officers, did nothing to stop the dered are from Aristide’s social base: the “I urge the interim government of days of the Duvalier dictatorship. killing, leading to immediate condemna- very poor who reject letting the country Haiti to set Prime Minister Neptune free go back to being run by stooges for U.S. and release all political prisoners in and French imperialism. Haitian prisons,” said Waters. “The Rep. Maxine Waters, a strong sup- interim government’s repression of dis- Experts in int’l law porter of Aristide who represents the senters like Prime Minister Neptune Black community of Los Angeles in the must end immediately. The whole world back Milosevic U.S. Congress, led a fact-finding delega- is watching.” . By John Catalinotto Ramsey Clark FRANCE The Hague, Netherlands at meeting in The Hague. Might doesn’t make right. NATO WW PHOTO: JOHN CATALINOTTO High school students forces were able to break up Yugo- slavia but that doesn’t make its kid- national attorney napped former leader a criminal. Christopher Black, Dr. protest massive cuts Fifty people interested in the John Laughland of defense of the former Yugoslav Britain and Professor By G. Dunkel Paris and Marseilles. president attended an international Bhim Singh, chair of The weather was miserable in much of conference here Feb. 26 to discuss the Jammu Kashmir Over 130,000 high school students in France, with hail and cold, blustery winds. “The Hague Proceedings against National Panther over 100 cities demonstrated all over Nevertheless, 15,000 protesters turned Slobodan Milosevic: Emerging Party. Maitre Tiphaine France on March 8 to demand the repeal out in Marseilles, France’s Mediterranean Issues in International Law.” Dickson of Quebec had of a new law restructuring their schools. port, and from 50,000 to 100,000 in The group was concerned that to cancel her appear- They also want the minister involved, Paris, according to organizers. the International Criminal Tribunal ance but submitted a François Fillon, fired. These were the first As trains from the Paris suburbs— for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is paper read by one of the participants. nationally coordinated demonstrations on where the workers, immigrants and poor attempting to cut short his legal defense. Clark, a founding member of the Inter- this issue, after many regional ones in live—discharged the students, they And even as Milosevic fights for time to national Action Center, said his visit to February. formed up and jogged to the subway, rebut the charges against him, the U.S. Milosevic the day before had showed the In France, education at all levels is a chanting and shouting: “Students on and the puppet Iraqi regime have plans to “triumph of the human spirit” and called national responsibility. strike! Fillon resign! Fillon, students are put another former leader of an invaded the president “undaunted.” Clark said “the Opposition to Fillon’s plan was so going to boot you in the ass!” It was an country on trial: Saddam Hussein. violence and deaths of the wars on Yugo- strong that the government had to declare impressive display of raucous, political The meeting brought together top slavia were caused by others” and “the real it to be an “urgent bill” to get it through anger. But controlled, giving the riot cops jurists in international law, mainly from crime was that of organizing the war.” parliament. Basically, it limits almost all in the stations no excuse to intervene. Europe and the United States but includ- Clark compared the situation in Yugo- students to a “basic level of education.” At the Place de la République, the ing a representative from India. The slavia to that of the U.S. Civil War, They will be trained to read, write, calcu- crowd was exuberant, chanting, dancing, speakers made persuasive presentations although in the Balkans the reactionary late and use a computer. History, geogra- jumping up and down, but it waited until exposing the illegitimacy of the ICTY and side won. “He [Milosevic] was blamed for phy, modern languages, science, litera- 2 p.m. for the march to the Bastille to the case against President Milosevic. doing what Abraham Lincoln did in the ture, economy and sports would be begin. Besides focusing on the cutbacks, The case has gone through a number of American Civil War—and that was trying options that the state would no longer the slogans and chants made it clear that phases since NATO forces kidnapped the to preserve the Union. Lincoln said many fund. Fillon’s plan would make it much harder Serb leader from prison in Belgrade in times that his sole purpose was to preserve Special funds that have been allocated for working class youth to get the high June 2001. When the proceedings opened the Union, yet here the United States’ sole to North African, West African and other school training needed for further educa- in February 2002, the media dubbed purpose was to destroy Yugoslavia, so that immigrant communities, as well as poor tion or a skilled job. them the “trial of the century.” Milosevic the ‘end of history’ would appear real,” rural areas, are also slated to be cut. Some All the major education unions in and Serbia were to be blamed for 10 years said Clark. 50,000 jobs in education would be elimi- France had contingents in the student-ini- of civil war in the Balkans in the 1990s. “To do that you had to demonize and nated. tiated demonstrations, because Fillon’s However, Milosevic was able, even with destroy the leadership that aimed to pre- Diplomas will vary from school to plan not only cuts 50,000 jobs, it also the minimal assistance available to him serve the Yugoslav union,” he added. “And school. This means that union contracts requires unpaid overtime and slashes the and despite serious medical problems, to to have its way the United States had to currently in force won’t apply to the start- services that schools can offer their stu- turn the tables on the ICTY during cross- corrupt the United Nations and interna- ing salaries of students who go directly dents. examination and indict the leaders of tional justice.” into the work force. The bosses will be While primary schools have not had a NATO for 10 years of aggression aimed at Professor Valkonov pointed out that allowed to pay whatever they want. formal restructuring, Fillon has changed destroying Yugoslavia. with regard to both Serbia and Iraq, “the The right-wing government of Prime the way enrollments are counted, which The result was that the corporate media United States violated all laws” to carry Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and has meant some classes are cut and the stopped reporting on the trial, thus turn- out military attacks on these countries. President Jacques Chirac picked January remaining are overcrowded, by French ing it into a de facto secret kangaroo court. Vladimir Krsljanin of the International and February to put through the changes standards. Parent groups have responded Now the prosecution is attempting to limit Committee for the Defense of Slobodan because the winter vacations make it dif- by occupying their local schools and also Milosevic’s active defense case and bring Milosevic announced plans to staff an ficult for the students to organize a mas- by participating in the high school the trial to a close as rapidly as possible. office in The Hague. Two young activists sive national protest. While the right wing protests. will help Milosevic prepare his defense has been trying to restructure education in A coalition of trade unions is planning International jurists case in the remaining time and publicize France since 1986, this is the first time it a one-day general strike March 10 of all Present at the Feb. 26 conference were the results. Krsljanin asked for the neces- has managed to get a bill through parlia- public employees to raise the issue of the former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey sary financial and organizational support ment. 35-hour week, attacks on the retirement Clark, former Bulgarian presidential can- from those who understand the impor- So on Feb. 15 the students had organ- system and to push for a general wage didate Professor Velko Valkanov, Profes- tance of refusing to allow NATO powers to ized regional demonstrations. At least one increase. Fillon’s plan obviously will also sor Dr. Hans Köchler of Austria, Professor be the sole ones to write the recent history protest was held in every major city and be attacked. Aldo Bernardini of Italy, Canadian inter- of the Balkans. in many small ones. The largest were in Dunkel was in Paris in February. ¡Proletarios y oprimidos de todos los países, uníos! Gobierno venezolano expone amenazas de EE.UU. contra la vida de Chávez Por Berta Joubert-Ceci Las declaraciones de Rice durante su representantes de los 34 países miembros, fueron capturados en Caracas el año confirmación en la cual dijo que “Chávez Rodríguez dijo, “Nosotros nos vemos pasado, y el asesinado reciente del procu- Revisando el correo electrónico y noti- es una fuerza negativa en la región” son obligados a poner en alerta a la opinión rador Danilo Anderson, que estaba inves- cias de América Latina, un tema sorpren- famosas. pública mundial.” tigando el papel jugado por la CIA en el dente se pronuncia: amenazas a la vida del El Ministro de Comunicaciones, Andrés “Las amenazas imperialistas solo se tor- golpe de estado del año 2002. presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez. Izarra pidió al pueblo venezolano que narán más fuertes mientras la Revolución Estos actos asesinos hacen recordar el El 13 de febrero, la agencia de noticias estuviera alerta por la “ofensiva política y Bolivariana se mueve hacia el camino anti- caso siempre presente de Salvador Reuters citó al Presidente Fidel Castro por la prensa” que ha estado llevando a imperialista y lejos de la explotación cap- Allende en Chile. Pero también hay los diciendo, “Yo digo a la opinión pública cabo la administración de Bush contra la italista de su pueblo y recursos naturales. asesinatos de Jorge Eliécer Gaitán en mundial: si ellos asesinan a Chávez, la Revolución Bolivariana en su jornada para PDVESA, la compañía nacional petrol- Colombia, Torrijos en Panamá, y todas las responsabilidad caerá totalmente sobre el deshonrarla y aislarla. era, está mostrando no solo a las masas invasiones criminales, intervenciones y presidente de los Estados Unidos, George Diciendo que el gobierno nacional está venezolanas sino a todos los pueblos del masacres –en Guatemala, El Salvador, W. Bush.” siguiendo de cerca la denuncia hecha por mundo lo que significa utilizar las ganan- Nicaragua y Honduras, la República El presidente Castro hizo recordar a el Presidente Chávez, Izarra produjo var- cias para el beneficio de las masas, y no Dominicana, Haití, Grenada y más. todos sobre los múltiples atentados con- ios documentos que ilustran la campaña para aumentar las riquezas de unos pocos. No hay lugar en la región donde los tra su propia vida. Él agregó que su ase- sistemática de “información tergiversada Se están produciendo muchos cambios EE.UU. no haya lanzado una intervención sinato en este tiempo no alteraría signi- y de acusaciones sin base alguna,” dirigi- rápidamente en Venezuela, uno tras otro, de una manera u otra para evitar que se ficativamente o revertiría la Revolución das a manipular a la opinión pública. no solamente avances sociales, sino avan- establezca el desarrollo de gobiernos Cubana, porque esta está firmemente Él identificó tres argumentos básicos ces económicos también, nacional e inter- responsables a las necesidades de sus arraigada en las masas populares, pero usados contra Venezuela: “que el Presi- nacionalmente con nuevos acuerdos com- pueblos. que la Revolución Bolivariana está en una dente Chávez es un cómplice de terror- erciales. Pero esta vez, las condiciones en la fase decisiva. ismo internacional; que Chávez es una Uno de los cambios internos es la inau- región son muy distintas. Se considera a El 20 de febrero en su programa de amenaza inminente para la democracia guración de INVEPAL, la Industria Vene- Venezuela la mayoría abrumadora de radio y televisión Aló Presidente, el pres- del Hemisferio Occidental; y que el gob- zolana Endógena de Papel. Es un modelo Latinoamérica como su revolución, su idente venezolano, Hugo Chávez dijo: “Si ierno de Chávez va rápidamente acercán- de la gerencia compartida entre el gob- líder, su inspiración. Y el mismo pueblo algo me pasa a mí, yo responsabilizo al dose hacia la autocracia, una democracia ierno y los trabajadores. Chávez lo descri- venezolano está comprometido a su presidente de los Estados Unidos. Yo autoritaria o una dictadura elegida.” bió así, ‘En el modelo capitalista tradi- defensa y su desarrollo. quiero que el pueblo venezolano sepa que Izarra declaró que estos términos han cional, el dueño hace todas las decisiones, Chávez mismo aludió a la posibilidad de yo no me voy a encerrar en Miraflores. Yo sido usados por portavoces del Departa- y acá está en las manos de los trabajadores, una intervención de los Estados Unidos. estaré con ustedes en las calles. Yo estoy mento del Estado de los Estados Unidos y en este modelo de gerencia compartida’.” Él dijo: No se equivoque, Sr. Bush. Si esto entregado a Dios pero yo sé que estoy con- por las agencias de inteligencia, y que han Las preocupaciones de los venezolanos pasa, se provocará un incendio en denado a la muerte.” sido repetidos por los medios de difusión; serían sin sentido si no fuera por la eviden- Venezuela. Y esto se va a extender a los Estas declaraciones fueron seguidas él mencionó a los medios periodísticos, cia trágica e histórica en Latinoamérica y demás pueblos de Latinoamérica y de por varias declaraciones por Bush, la Washington Times, Washington Post, Fox el Caribe, donde los Estados Unidos han América del Sur. No se atreva, porque creo Secretario del Estado, Condoleezza Rice y News, Wall Street Journal y el Miami derrocado jefes de estado elegidos que lo vas a lamentar”. una campaña periodística contra Chávez Herald. democráticamente por medio de golpes de Él había mencionado anteriormente tanto en los Estados Unidos como en el El 23 de febrero, en sus esfuerzos de dar estado sangrientos. que Venezuela sigue incrementando su periodismo oligárquico de Venezuela. Hay a conocer estas amenazas a la comunidad Venezuela misma ha sido el recipiente capacidad defensiva y va a seguir for- una gran preocupación en el gobierno de internacional, el Ministro de Exterior de de acciones asesinas inspiradas por los mando las Unidades Básicas de la Defensa Venezuela el cuál ve a estas sucesos como Venezuela, Alí Rodríguez se dirigió al Con- EE.UU. como por ejemplo el golpe de Popular. Él dijo, “Venezuela no interven- una campaña para cambiar la opinión sejo Permanente de la Organización de estado de abril de 2002, la huelga patronal drá en ningún lugar, pero repito, nadie pública contra la Revolución Bolivariana Estados Americanos en Washington, D.C., y sabotaje de PDVESA, los aproximada- debe intervenir con Venezuela, aquí esta- y poder así justificar una intervención en una sesión extraordinaria a petición del mente 100 paramilitares colombianos mos listos a defender nuestra Patria cueste abierta contra esta. gobierno venezolano. Dirigiéndose a los entrenando para asesinar a Chávez que lo que cueste”. El Tribunal Supremo decide contra pena de muerte para jóvenes Por Gloria Rubac Houston a demorar el juicio hasta que el y estamos muy felices pero a la vez, nos pequeño, y sólo pesaba 95 libras, que la Tribunal Supremo tomara la decisión duelen todavía nuestros corazones por máscara no le quedaba y se le cayó de su “¡Esta es una victoria de mayor impor- anticipada, pero el fiscal lo negó. Napoleón. Esta decisión debía haberse cara mientras que lo electrocutaba el tancia para todos los partidarios de la Bárbara Acuña le dijo a Mundo Obrero, tomado más pronto,” dijeron ellos. estado de Carolina de Sur. abolición de la pena de muerte! Otro “Yo me puse tan feliz y aliviada con esta Desde 1976, cuando la pena de muerte De los 73 delincuentes juveniles que soporte de la pena de muerte racista y con- decisión hoy. Todo ha sido tan traumático fue restaurada en los Estados Unidos, 22 actualmente están encarcelados bajo pena tra los pobres ha sido quitado,” declaró para nuestra familia. Apenas puedo jóvenes han sido ultimados legalmente, 13 de muerte, y ellos que ya han sido mata- Njeri Shakur a través de sus lágrimas de esperar a ver a mi hijo esta mañana. Les de ellos en Texas. dos en esta época, dos de tres son o han alegría el 1 de marzo, al saber que el agradezco mucho a todos esos abogados y El primer asesinato por ley de un sido o africano-american@ o latin@. De Tribunal Supremo de los Estados Unidos activistas que han luchado por esto.” delincuente juvenil ocurrió en 1642: las 10 delincuentes juveniles femeninas había decidido cinco jueces a cuatro que Acuña y otras madres de presos conde- Thomas Graunger, 16 años, en la colonia matadas en los Estados Unidos, ocho la pena de muerte para los jóvenes es cas- nados a la muerte hablarán en una confer- de Plymouth, Mass. en los 360 años fueron africana-americanas y una indí- tigo cruel y extraordinario y contra la encia de la prensa el 2 de marzo, llamada desde entonces, aproximadamente 365 gena. En cada uno de estos casos, la víc- Constitución de los Estados Unidos. por el Movimiento de Texas para Abolir la personas han sido ultimadas por tima fue blanca. Esta decisión afecta a 72 personas Pena de Muerte. Ellas hablarán sobre la crímenes juveniles. Los estados del Sur componen 84 por encarceladas bajo la pena de muerte en los decisión y sus efectos sobre una familia La persona conocida como la más joven ciento de todas las penas de muerte Estados Unidos que tenían 16 o 17 años que ha tenido un hijo de 17 años conde- de ser ultimado legalmente en los Estados impuestas en delincuentes juveniles cuando fueron acusados de homicidio nado a morir por el estado. Unidos, fue James Arcene, un niño indí- desde 1973. Sólo tres estados—Texas, capital. Veintinueve de estas personas Uno de los casos más conocido de gena que tenía 10 años cuando ocurrió el Florida y Alabama—contienen la mitad están en las cárceles de Texas. jóvenes en Texas fue el de Shaka Sankofa, crimen del cuál era acusado. de esos casos condenados a la pena de La última persona que fue sentenciada ultimado por el estado en el año 2000. Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la muerte. a la pena de muerte en Texas fue Robert Otro caso fue el de Napoleón Beazley, ulti- persona más joven que se ha muerto en los La lucha masiva independiente debe Acuña, condenado por homicidio capital mado en año 2002. Los padres de Beazley Estados Unidos debido a la pena de seguir hasta que la pena de muerte en agosto del año pasado. Sus abogados de respondieron a la decisión con emociones muerte, fue George Stinney, un joven racista y contra los pobres, sea abolida defensa trataron de persuadir al fiscal de mixtas, “Sabemos que ésta es una victoria africano-americano de 14 años. Él era tan para siempre.