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Canadian soldier in Kandahar . May 8 2006.
Roadside bomb in Kandahar. May 8 2006. 10,000signatures One Million March in Los Angeles For Immigrant Rights!
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FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 By Nita Palmer disillusioned with the officials who run their country and grassroots support for the insurgency is Afghanistan has now been growing as a result.” (April 17, occupied by Canada, the US, and 2006). The deteriorating quality other NATO countries for more of life, the rampant corruption, and than four long years. In Canada, the lack of any real “democracy” we have watched as a new era of in Afghanistan exposes the reality war and occupation unfolds before that the government of Canada our eyes, with the government of does not support the needs of the Canada playing a leading role in Afghan people there. They support the era through the occupation a corrupt government that steals the of Afghanistan. As parliament few meagre pennies that the people confirms “Canada’s commitment” of the country have, lining their to the occupation through a two- own pockets with it and directing year extension of the current the money into largely foreign- troop deployment there, we must owned investment that regular ask what this mission means for people in Afghanistan never see a the people of Afghanistan. Has penny of. quality of life improved for people in Afghanistan? Do people in Afghans bear the double burden of Afghanistan now live in a free and fighting not only against occupying democratic society? Roadside bomb in Kandahar. forces, but also against the corrupt May 17 2006. and repressive government of their Corruption as bad as occupation country. In many ways, people in Afghanistan feel the effects of The answer to the above questions occupation most directly through is a resounding ‘no’. Directly, the corruption and exploitation the occupation has caused the carried out by their government. deaths and suffering of countless Afghanistan However, their fight cannot Afghans through its bombs and be solely against a repressive guns, a soaring opium trade, and government in their country. It also a plummeting life expectancy. must be against the occupation, However, the occupation has also as the occupying forces are not caused a broader, deeper, and Canada’s Iraq only a direct threat to people in more widespread dysfunction Afghanistan in their daily lives, in Afghanistan that leads to the they are also a support system for deaths and suffering of countless the repressive government that is Afghans: corruption. For people the average salary for even a well- funded primarily by money being corruption is fully supported by exploiting people in Afghanistan. in Afghanistan, corruption that paid government officer is only $60 invested in the country, which they occupying forces in Afghanistan, permeates through society poses USD per month – not enough to direct or actually control. Many as the occupiers profit from the What way to go? barriers to accessing basic needs, pay half of a month’s rent in Kabul. top officials have been accused of investment. As well, they are such as food and shelter. It Even those individuals privileged receiving payments from foreign the primary supporters of this No matter the claims of the increases the exploitation of people enough to hold a good job in companies, or funnelling money government, which does not occupying forces, people in in Afghanistan from exploitation Afghanistan can barely afford to into investment projects such represent people in Afghanistan. Afghanistan do not now live in by imperialist occupation to survive. They hold enough power as the Kabul City Centre Mall, Likewise, the elites of Afghanistan a free and democratic, or even
exploitation by Afghanistan’s own to be able to supplement their which brings profits to foreign continue to collaborate with marginally improved society. The corrupt government, supported by income with bribes and the like investors and the Afghan elite, but imperialism, and continue to rampant corruption in Afghanistan the imperialist forces. – although it is at the expense of not to poor and working people. direct reconstruction money into today, which widens the chasm others. The problem of corruption Mariam Rawi, representative of investment projects that benefit between the elites and the poor and Essentially, corruption occurs on in Afghanistan does not begin with the Revolutionary Association only the interests of the Afghan working class, truly shows whose two levels: within high-ranking those with lower-level government of the Women of Afghanistan ruling class and imperialism. interest this occupation is in: the government officials and others jobs, however. Corruption from (RAWA) noted, “this [corruption] imperialist ruling class of Canada who possess a significant amount higher levels of authority is felt is happening in a country that has The government of Canada and and as well as their well-supported of political and economic control at its greatest at the bottom rungs received $12Billion dollars in occupation of Afghanistan partners – the corrupt ruling class over the country, and within lower- of the social ladder, where poor aid while another 10 billion were of Afghanistan. For regular people While the government of Canada level government offices, such and working people are forced to pledged at the recent London in Afghanistan, “freedom and maintains its guise of “building as the judiciary and the police. shell out their few pennies of food conference. Even a fraction of this democracy” means the freedom to democracy” in Afghanistan, it is In these lower levels, corruption money in order to pay a bribe. aid has not been used for the benefit build a government and a society becoming more and more clear that typically takes the form of bribes and welfare of our people, but that truly represents their interests the “democracy” that the Canadian demanded of people before they Poverty and corruption: Two filled the pockets of the warlords – not the interest of imperialism military is supporting there is a can have documents officially sides of the same coin and high rank officials” (April 27, or of the ruling and elite class of farce. The so-called democracy of signed, appear in court, or even get 2006). Afghanistan. The only way to do What causes much of the poverty the Afghan government is robbing work. this is for people in Afghanistan of Afghan people? What causes from the poor and giving to the rich, This corruption is in addition to have control of their land, their Eid Mohammad, a twelve-year- government officers to threaten and supporting investments in which to the fact that much of the resources, and their country – in old boy who sells spinach on the to take bribes from people in order 50% of the profit goes to foreign so-called “aid money” that is other words, an immediate end to street, said “I pay 6 dollars [a day] to earn enough to survive? It is company owners, and 50% of the invested in Afghanistan is invested the occupation. to policemen so that I can stay corruption on a higher level, within through organizations such as the profit goes to Afghan business here. If not, they trample over the government’s top positions and Afghanistan Investment Support owners. People in Afghanistan CANADA OUT OF the vegetables.” Mohammad also within the elite of Afghanistan. Agency (AISA), a private-sector do not support the government AFGHANISTAN NOW! observed that the police “beat the support agency that encourages that has been installed by the STOP THE CANADIAN WAR While 80% of Afghanistan’s 31 people who do not pay up.” This foreign investment in Afghanistan, occupation forces, and as a recent DRIVE! million people live in poverty, level of corruption, though, comes which does not see any benefit for article from the Al Jazeera news BRING THE TROOPS HOME a small handful live in luxury, as little surprise in a country where regular people in Afghanistan. This agency noted “Many Afghans are NOW!
Canadian soldier during raid on Kandahar Canadian patrol outside Kabul. Canadian soldier in Kandahar. village. May 17 2006. August 2005. April 2006.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 the war in Iraq, as opposition added to the commitment As the Canadian war drive increases, well as from the of the Canadian elite to this war drive and as people in Afghanistan continue People in Canada Say: Canadian military’s means that the government of Canada to suffer, we must call for Canada Out d e p l o y m e n t will only grow less apt to consulting of Afghanistan Now! However, we must of ships to the people in Canada about missions like also have an opportunity to discuss what Persian Gulf to the occupation of Afghanistan. Of late, the occupation of Afghanistan means for support the war, we have seen this through recent actions people in Afghanistan, and for ordinary BRINGS THE TROOPS and the RCMP’s designed to suppress discussion among working people in Canada. Thus, we deployment of people in Canada – such as calling the must call for an Independent Public officers to Jordan vote on the lengthening of the current Inquiry into the Canadian War Drive in to train over 32,000 mission in Afghanistan at the last Afghanistan, so that we can add tens of HOME NOW Iraqi police. minute. In this way, people in Canada thousands more voices to the demand can’t voice our opposition even by the for Canada Out of Afghanistan! and an Another front minimal means we have until after the end to the suffering that is costing the MAWO Petition Drive Against Canada’s War that the ruling vote. lives of thousands in Afghanistan. class in Canada in Afghanistan: Over 10,000 Signatures has opened in its war on oppressed By Nita Palmer people is in Haiti, of Afghanistan. Nowhere was this more where Canada played a leading role in obvious than in the “take note” debate the overthrow of the Haitian people’s May 18th 2006 – Over 10,000 people in that was held in Parliament on April th democratically elected President Jean- Canada have declared their opposition 10 . A subsequent article in the Toronto Bertand Aristide, and has subsequently to Canada’s occupation of Afghanistan Star aptly noted that “the most striking deployed over 100 RCMP officers to on petition, via Mobilization Against aspect of the Monday night debate was train the Haitian National Police in War and Occupation (MAWO)’s the chasm between Canadian voters and repressing the Haitian people. ‘Canada Out of Afghanistan’ petition the people who purport to represent th drive. Since January 2004, MAWO has them.” (April 15 2006). The recent years of increase in aggression by the government of Canada against collected signatures for the Canada Out Over the past year, the government of campaign throughout Vancouver and oppressed people around the world Canada and the Canadian elite have cannot be seen in single, isolated cases. the Lower Mainland. Response has been grown increasingly aggressive in their incredibly positive, especially in recent Canada’s new International Policy participation in the occupation of Statement released last year stated, “We months, as the government of Canada’s Afghanistan and military operations increasing war drive in Afghanistan are in the midst of a major rebalancing of worldwide. In 2005, the military budget global power… in a world of traditional has created a growing opposition to the was doubled to $25.8Billion. Two occupation among people in Canada. and emerging giants, independent thousand more troops were deployed to countries like Canada-countries with Numerous polls showing the level of Afghanistan, where they took charge of small populations-risk being swept support for Canadian military operations the NATO occupation of Kandahar and aside, their influence diminished, their TOWARDS AN ANTI-WAR in Afghanistan have been released Southern Afghanistan. Most recently, on th ability to compete hampered. That may within the last few months. These May 17 the commitment of deployment sound dramatic, but the stakes are that results have been incredibly varied, of Canadian troops to Kandahar was high. We will have to be smart, focused, LABOUR MOVEMENT: showing anything from 67% against the formally extended by two years, until agile, creative and dogged in the pursuit Canadian military being in Afghanistan 2009. of our interests.” This declaration came in a poll conducted by CTV in March, Government of Canada reveals its alongside more statements calling for VDLC PASSES IMPORTANT to 70% in favour of “peacekeeping” plans Canada to rise above its “middle power operations in Afghanistan, according status” in this new era. to an Angus Reid poll, also in March. While the most marked increase in ANTI-WAR RESOLUTION! However, the collection of over 10,000 Canadian military aggression abroad has What next for us after 10,000 signatures against the occupation in the been in Afghanistan, Canada has also signatures: Continue to Organize, been increasing its aggression against Educate, Moblize! Lower Mainland alone, and more being By Ivan Drury calling for the government of collected every day, are a true measure other countries. The government of As poor and working people in Canada, Canada to “remove all Canadian Canada has tried to hide behind a mask of the amount of opposition to the we must ask whose interests this war military forces from Afghanistan of humanitarianism for not deploying On May 16th 2006, on the eve of occupation among working people in drive, particularly the occupation of immediately” is direct, clear, and troops to Iraq. However, Paul Cellucci, the government of Canada’s vote Canada. Afghanistan, is representing. A 2005 needs no interpretation. Fire This former US Ambassador to Canada, report by UNICEF showed that between to extend Canada’s occupation of Members of Parliament10,000 against accurately stated that “Ironically, the Time welcomes this development 1993-2004, while 6% of the central Afghanistan to 2009, the Vancouver Members of Society Canadians… will provide more support as an important sign of the labour government expenditure was allocated to and District Labour Council (VDLC) In sharp contrast to the unity that indirectly to this war in Iraq than most of defence spending, just 3% was allocated movement’s leadership into the anti-
working people in Canada show the 46 countries that are fully supporting to health, and 2% to education. Clearly, against the occupation of Afghanistan, our efforts there.” This support has the war drive in Afghanistan and its passed a historic motion against the war camp, and a step towards the however, Canadian MPs have showed come from Canadian corporation SNC- increased defence spending is not in the Canadian occupation of Afghanistan. mass anti-war movement – a consistent support for the occupation Lavlin, the largest supplier of arms to interests of regular people in Canada. The passing of this motion against development that is strongly in the But even more, Afghan people feel the the Canadian war drive is an favor of all working, poor, and effects of the Canadian occupation of important precedent for the labour oppressed people in Canada, and their country, as life expectancy drops, everywhere in the world. women’s rights remain non-existent, movement in Canada, especially and all Afghan people have seen of as the government and ruling class Motion passed by the Vancouver the promised “reconstruction” is the of Canada are traveling faster and and District Labour Council, May building of hotels and shopping malls further in the other direction, deeper 16, 2006 that remain inaccessible to them. into the occupation of Afghanistan. Subject: Canadian Troops Out According to their own actions and The most important part of this motion of Afghanistan statements, the ruling class in Canada is is not in the political problems in the WHEREAS: C a n a d i a n in Afghanistan for their own economic “whereas” points of the motion. interests. According to people across ground troops are now actively Canada – including over 10,000 people This motion is important because it participating in the US initiated in the BC Lower Mainland alone is a sign of the development of anti- “Operation Enduring Freedom” in – the occupation of Afghanistan is not war consciousness amongst working Afghanistan; and in our interest, and as Canada’s war people in Vancouver. We are certain WHEREAS: This puts drive increases, people in Canada are that workers in Vancouver are not becoming increasingly against it. In Canadian soldiers into an alone in Canada in their opposition to order to protect its interests, the ruling aggressive military role where they Canada’s occupation of Afghanistan. Signing off against the Canadian war drive. class in Canada must continue this have been forced to kill civilians, war drive. For people in Canada, our The passing of this motion clearly some of whom have been shown to be innocent bystanders; and WHEREAS: Canada has The Newspaper Of no strategic national interest in Afghanistan other than to please the FIRE THIS TIME MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE United States which has become mired in an ‘unwinable’ war in that -ISSN 1712 - 1817 - www.firethistime.net Volume 3 Issue 3 country; now THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: Editorial Board: Subscriptions The opinions expressed in the newspaper are Shannon Bundock, Ali Yerevani, For a one year subscription outside the lower those of the authors, and do not necessarily That the Vancouver and District Ivan Drury, Tamara Hansen, represent those of Fire This Time. Labour Council call on the Brennan Luchsinger, Aaron Mercredi mainland, make cheques payable to “Brennan Luchsinger” or “Shannon Bundock” (Canada If you find Fire This Time to be an effective tool in Canadian Government, through Editor - Ali Yerevani $15 , USA $20, International $30) the struggle of oppressed people for justice, more the Canadian Labour Congress, to Layout & Design - Brennan Luchsinger than ever, we need your support. On top of our remove all Canadian military forces Copy Editor - Tamara Hansen Distribution regular costs of production, we have recently sent from Afghanistan immediately; Assistant Copy Editing - Nita Palmer For Fire This Time in your area across BC, two members of our editorial board on assignment and Canada, and Internationally contact Publicity Spanish Language Editor - Carlos Lopez to Cuba and the Northwest Territories in order to and Distribution Coordinator Brennan BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: Publicity & Distribution Coordinator - make Fire This Time stronger. These efforts have Luchsinger strained our finances. Brennan Luchsinger That the Vancouver and District Phone : (604) 338-9006 Labour Council reiterate our view Email : [email protected] If you would like to help with a donation, please Contact make cheques payable to “Shannon Bundock”, or that Canada’s interests are best Phone - (604) 322-1764 Submissions: “Brennan Luchsinger. served by maintaining our standing as a peace-keeping nation in the Fax - (604) 322-1763 We welcome articles, letters, and unsolicited This Newspaper could not have been possible Email - [email protected] submissions. However we cannot promise without the generous contributions from our world and not through aggressive Mail - PO Box 21607 Vancouver BC, V5L 5G3 publication. Submissions can be made by email, supporters. military occupation of other fax, or mail. Submissions will not be returned. countries.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES SHOWING THE PATH FOR STRUGGLE: MOBILIZE ! DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL WORKERS! STATUS FOR ALL!
By Ivan Drury non-status people. But the gravity that government reported in the European media that brought so many millions of people they had received notice from the government of to the street is the long-standing anti- Canada that 15,000 to 22,000 non-status Portuguese On March 25th 2006 non-status workers immigrant racism of the US government people would be deported. in the US wrote a new chapter in the and much of society. The combination of the sudden wave of deportations history of the Americas. In every The Sensenbrenner Bill was not to be and the appearance of the massive immigrant rights single major city in the United States, the beginning of ‘extra-legal’ existence rallies in the US raised the issue of immigration and and countless small cities and towns, for non-status people in the US. The the status of non-status people in Canada. millions of people wrote their names purpose of this Bill, for the US ruling in streets that had always regarded The government of Canada has released estimates class, was not to eliminate so-called them as anonymous and disposable. of numbers of non-status people in Canada as “as “illegal” workers. After all, the Bill These “Marches for Dignity” bore signs many as 400,000” and independent sources put was proposed by a representative of the with the simple sentiments of honest that number as high as 600,000 people. In Toronto, same capitalist ruling class in the US people: “Am I not a human being?” these people make up 75% of the construction that profits off of the super-exploited / “Don’t I deserve rights?” / “What industry labour force. Without them, there would labour of millions and millions of do my taxes buy me?”… Many of the be no construction industry in Toronto… exactly non-status people. The purpose of the homemade signs were emblazoned with because, as non-status workers, they get paid Sensenbrenner Bill was to make life for the defensive slogans and rhetorical less than their “legal” co-workers, “keeping costs difficult for non-status workers in the questions of people who have had a down” and increasing the profits of the bosses. US - to make their employment more fight imposed on them, a fight that only insecure, their lives more uncertain and The problem in Canada is paralleled with the injustice demands they wage. secretive, their labour more exploitable. problem in the US. For non-status workers the On April 10th, they emerged again, The purpose of the Bill was to terrorize problem is that they don’t make enough money millions of non-status people, their the masses of unnamed and unknown to survive, their lives are insecure, they have no families and supporters, in every non-status workers in the US, to silence democratic or labour rights under Canadian law, imaginable corner of the US, this time them and hide them away, to divide and they are treated as inhuman. with American flags even more common them further from the rest of the US Maintaining cheap labour market in Canada than slogans, questions, and demands. working class and to stop them from The American flag that confronts the organizing against their oppression. For the Canadian ruling class, the “illegal” labour non-status worker as a hostile mask In this respect, the immediate goals of market is more and more important to maintain over the state that will take and take the Sensenbrenner Bill were already and even expand in order to expand the super- and take from them and never offer a colossal failure. The US ruling class exploitable labour market. But at the same time, as anything but insecurity and exploitation did not accurately calculate the depths this section of the working class grows larger and in return. The American flags flying of resentment and yearning for justice less transitory, as was the case with the Portuguese above endless seas of people who will that lay incubating in the masses of community in Toronto, their ability to organize never be legally “American” lost their non-status workers. Rather than terror, for their rights as workers also grows. This was international meaning as a symbol of the Sensenbrenner Bill unleashed also the case with the Toronto construction- imperialist war and occupation. The flag the collective action of a people with working Portuguese community, as was shown in was transformed, for a day, into a symbol nothing to lose. the thousands-strong support rallies organized by of pleading hope for the 12 million-plus Universal Workers Union, Local 183, the biggest While the Sensenbrenner Bill has been non-Americans in the prison house of construction workers union in the Toronto area. set back, the watered down versions of nationalities known as the United States it that have been presented are hardly The strategy of the Canadian ruling class to of America. better, and remain a far cry from the deal with this contradictory problem mirrors Dallas, Texas. On May 1st, again they marched, this blanket amnesty and status for all the strategy adopted by the US ruling class – to April 9 2006.
time with a boycott deepen insecurity, division, allow non-status people in Canada that must be taken up by specially of US products and terror amongst non- to apply for immigration from the labour movement, and all and a day dubbed, status workers to drive them within Canada if leaving Canada progressive organizations, and “A Day Without deeper underground. Along to make an application would all working, poor and oppressed I m m i g r a n t s . ” with direct attacks on non- exact unreasonable hardship) is people in Canada. Without the support status people through arrests, less than 5%. Non-status people The recent massive and powerful of organized labour, round ups, detentions, and have little choice but to remain demonstrations in the US are a 2 million of the most deportations comes a parallel without status, and to suffer the sign of what is possible when legally vulnerable drive to deepen racism super-exploitation that this brings. non-status workers themselves – a and employment- and xenophobia amongst The rights of workers are minority within the working class insecure people in “Canadian” workers. The workers’ rights! Status for All! – organize collectively in defense the US walked off government of Canada seeks of their rights. Through the actions the job and into the to perpetrate the myth that the The so-called “illegal” workforce of these millions of people in the streets. According sub-working-class position of in Canada is nothing new. streets of the US, the rights of non- to the Economist non-status people is the fault Immigrants have been imported status workers has emerged as an magazine, “At of these workers themselves specifically for their uses as a issue for all working people in the the twin ports of and not the businesses and labour force since before the US and Canada. This movement is Los Angeles and industry barons that demand confederation of Canada. But in an early stage of development in Long Beach, only lower and lower wages. under the pressure of international Canada, but it has much to learn around 10% of capitalist crisis, immigrants are Recent talk of guest worker from the power of the immigrant the lorry-drivers coming under the guns of the pilot programs in the rights movement in the US. It is turned up for work; war at home, as capitalists seek industries of Fort McMurray, possible for non-status people to in both California to make more profit while being Alberta, the fruit fields in challenge anti-immigrant racism. and Florida farm squeezed by greater and greater that is necessary for a resolution to the interior of BC, and the It is possible for non-status people workers in their tens of thousands left competition. the immediate problems of “illegal” construction industry of Toronto are not meant to fight for their rights under the fields untended; in the Midwest, immigration in the US. The US as solutions for the plight of non-status workers. For working people, regardless of imperialist laws. It is possible for meat processors such as Tyson Foods ruling class is continuing its denial of These programs will regulate a certain number of their nationality, citizenship, or them to win. For the rest of the close shop for the day.” The best of the democratic rights to so-called “illegal” workers, for their labour to be used and more easily country of origin, the defense of working class the challenge is to spirit of Mayday was alive in the streets workers, and continuing its assault on controlled – as needed – but the base of permanent the rights of all working people join them, shoulder to shoulder of the US this year. the labour conditions and human rights non-status workers will remain, and even suffer is the struggle is each and every in the streets, in the factories, on It would be incorrect to pin the of the same people. . more. single working person. The the picket lines, on the frontlines responsibility for these marches to any rights, or absolute lack of rights, of the struggle against exploitation Not just a US problem – the status of The non-status worker labour market is controlled organization or network of organizations. of non-status people, “illegal,” and injustice. non-status people in Canada through mass deportations that spark panic through People poured into the streets the way undocumented workers is an issue all non-status communities in Canada that milk pours onto the floor when you At the end of March the government of and drive them further underground. tip a jug on its side – the job was done Canada staged a siege on Dufferin Mall “Security Certificate” legislation that by gravity. By this formula, the tipping in Toronto’s Portuguese community allows non-citizens to be locked up for of the jug was the passing of House and, overnight, deported two dozen indefinite periods of time without charges, Resolution 4437 (The Border Protection, families who had been living and evidence, or trial is further evidence of Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration working in Canada for fifteen years and the inhuman status of non-status people Control Act of 2005), known as the longer. Immigration minister Monte in Canada. And on top of these immediate “Sensenbrenner Bill.” This Bill, passed Solberg tried to calm fears of a massive and constant threats is the hopelessness through the House of Representatives crackdown on so-called “illegals” in of changing this situation through the but – especially with the unprecedented Canada by saying that the Conservative immigration system itself. Canada’s new mass opposition to it – unlikely to pass government was keeping with previously immigration minister Monte Solberg through the Senate into law, would existing policy of deporting 10,000 said recently that he thinks the previous make non-status people in the US people a year. But this was contrasted government’s immigration targets were and the people and organizations that with this weekend deportation of too high. Not that it matters much for support them politically or materially, people whose lives are full integrated non-status people anyway. The pre- felony criminals, liable to be locked in the workforce and society in Canada removal risk assessment acceptance rate up. Beyond the immediate and extreme and the announcement in the Toronto (a last ditch process against deportation) criminalization of non-status people, Star that more than 100 Portuguese is less than 3%. The acceptance rate the Bill would see the construction of a families in the Toronto area “will be for Humanitarian and Compassionate New York, New York. 700-mile long wall along the Mexican receiving their deportation orders in the applications (a process that is supposed to April 1 2006. border, and the mass deportation of coming weeks.” Further, the Portuguese
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 AS LONG AS THE GRASS SHALL GROW, WE WILL DEFEND OURSELVES BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY: SIX NATIONS & THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE By Aaron Mercredi the anti-terrorist unit of the RCMP, the non- violent with us. -Malcolm X Integrated National Security Enforcement A Colonial and Violent Government Team (INSET) and the Vancouver Police Malcolm X said this in response to Department blocked off the Burrard bridge, the lynching of black people in the While government representatives publicly ambushing three Indigenous men who US and the government’s refusal to sit at negotiation tables and privately plan were transporting legally obtained hunting defend them against the racist attacks how to crush the people of Six Nations, rifles. Two of the men, Dave Dennis and by the Klu Klux Klan and police the people inside the reclamation site James Sakej Ward, were well-known for agencies. It is a fundamental right of are planning and waiting for what the their involvement in the West Coast and people to defend themselves when government of Canada’s next move will East Coast Warrior Societies. They were they are under attack, by any means be. On April 20th, the Ontario Provincial involved in struggles at Burnt Church, necessary. It is also a fundamental Police raided the Six Nations reclamation Cheam, Esowista, Saanich as well as other right for nations to arm themselves site at Caledonia, beating and arresting 16 times that communities have asked for their in case of an attack from another people who were peacefully asserting Six nation. For the Indigenous nations Nations sovereignty over the land. who exist within Canada’s If we’ve learned anything from colonial borders, is this any this and Canada’s past actions, different? Nations, who it is that the need for Indigenous signed agreements with Bolckade at Six Nations. people to defend themselves has the British Crown or with Canada on a nation-to-nation basis, been re-enforced. At Six Nations, Indigenous people peacefully or Indigenous nations who have no reclaimed their land that was being taken from Six Nations people and their such agreements. We are talking them. Their struggle is not alone. It is bound supporters had occupied the about nations who need to defend up with the Inuit community in Labrador area since February 28th, when themselves against theft by Canada who just lost a young girl to tuberculosis in they prevented a luxury home and its provinces. British Columbia one of the richest countries in the world. It development from being built on is 97% unceded territory, which is bound up with the broken promises and their land. The police raid was means that almost all of the land inaction by the government to compensate taken on at the same time as a has never been handed over in a Bolckade at Six Nations. the survivors of the residential schools. It is slander campaign through ruling treaty and legally belongs to the Native people taking a stand against injustice. class media outlets, telling people in Canada many Indigenous nations who make up the help in defending themselves against attacks As the Clan mothers, the families, the young that this was a justified act since they were area. Then, what legitimacy does a colonial by Canada’s colonial ‘law’ enforcement and old activists, the Warrior Alliance and dealing with a ‘lawless’ group of Natives Canadian gun law have for an Indigenous agencies and its suppression of their food all the supporters head in to another day who were dangerous to the Canadian person in BC when the governance and harvesting, and theft of their land. of defending Six Nations land, we need to population. These tactics are nothing new even the existence of this province is unconditionally support their demands and for Canada. illegitimate? their right to defend themselves.
During Oka, the government sent in the There was no blockade or standoff going Securite Quebec, and the Canadian military on when 30 police officers held them at to crush a group of Mohawk people who gunpoint, confiscated fourteen new hunting Prayer Run For World Peace were standing up against the expansion of an rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 18-hole golf course on to their sacred burial camping and survival gear, and held them grounds. Canada’s media portrayed them as in a military barracks. No, these guns were Begins in Vancouver! terrorists and thugs, when any photo of that being used as part of a cultural, hunting standoff will actually show you families and and survival-training program for the By Aaron Mercredi the entire route or just sections. Over 20 young children together on the other side Tsawataineuk First Nation, located on reservations and small communities will be of the barricades. The media blamed the the central BC coast, called the Outdoor travelled through as the youth make their lobster crisis on Miqmaq fishers at Burnt Indigenous Traditional Training, to teach On May 14th, ten runners took off from way north. the Trout Lake Community Centre in East Church and tried to justify the actions of the youth hunting and survival skills. Did any The Prayer Run will culminate with a four- Department of Fisheries and Oceans whose of this matter the RCMP? No. The rifles, Vancouver to begin the first leg of a long- distance run to Alaska. The Prayer Run for day gathering for World Peace and Prayer fully loaded enforcement vessels were the supplies, everything that was taken Day with Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the World Peace is a 3,640km run by Indigenous th ramming unarmed Miqmaq fishermen who from these men remains locked up. The youth that starts in Coast Salish territory, 19 Generation Keeper of the Sacred White were trying to pull up Buffalo Calf Bundle. The event will be hosted Vancouver, and ends up at Eklutna Indian th st their nets from the water. Reservation near Anchorage, Alaska. There, by the Inuit Nation from June 18 to 21 . They tried to justify the the runners will experience and witness This initiative, organized and led by young huge RCMP presence at the conditions of the environment they Indigenous people from across the continent Gustafsen Lake. They will inherit. Sponsored by the Wolakota is a positive reaction to the injustices and manipulated events and Youth Council and the Alliance of Native struggles we face every day as Indigenous told the Canadian public Americans, this run has brought youth from people, and as our land and resources are that they were being as far away as South Dakota to participate. continually taken and developed for the profit attacked by the angry “Prayer Run for World Peace’s goal is to bring of a few. For more information on the run, mob of Natives inside positive change by encouraging a conscious how you can support it, or to get involved, the camp, when it was awareness by running with our prayers for please visit www.wolakota.org. they who were the ones World Peace,” said Graci Horne, President of inflicting the violence. the Wolakota Youth Council. It was revealed later “The youth of today will face great hardships that that was a well- as we become the caretakers of Grandmother orchestrated slander Earth. Today, the glaciers are melting, leaving campaign by the RCMP us with higher levels of water that will and the corporate media. affect our water supply, flooding land and But this begs the question, was that the only RCMP could not get away with pressing severe storms due to the neglect of previous time that this happened? No, it was the only any charges against them since there was generations. We need to make a change in time they were caught. nothing illegal about what they were doing. the way we live, soon, before a better life What they did though, however, was send a is not attainable. Our word of sacrifice and commitment is the only thing we own. The The Criminalization of the Non-Violent strong message to Indigenous communities rest, including our bodies, belongs to the and Native activists who would side with earth.” When Indigenous people assert their rights the Warrior Societies: “Look what happened as Indigenous people, tensions flare and to them. This can happen to you too if you The runners were joined by other Indigenous it is easier for the media to ignite racism are militant in asserting your rights.” youth when they left from the Mother’s against Indigenous people. But, what about Day Pow Wow in Vancouver. Runners of when Indigenous people are targeted for Self-Defense, a human right all nations are encouraged to join the long exercising rights that an ordinary Canadian distance runners from different locations citizen is entitled to? On June 27th 2005, “We are non-violent with those who are along the way, and can participate for
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 JUSTICE FOR FRANK PAUL: AN INDIGENOUS MAN NOT FORGOTTEN, A STRUGGLE NEVER OVER
reported that his condition “did not appear by a police officer in another East side Public Service Alliance By Aaron Mercredi any different to his usual state of post-gaol alley. Can we forget about the ‘starlight of Canada (PSAC) Stands sobriety.” tours’ in Saskatchewan, where the police would beat young Native men, drive in Solidarity with Six Video Surveillance The order was given to “breach Mr. Paul out of the (downtown) area,” and he was them to the outskirts of the city, take their th Nations Protesters On December 6 , 1998, Frank Paul’s taken back in to the elevator and dragged jackets, leaving them to freeze to death motionless body was dragged across back in to the paddy wagon. He was left in the below zero degree winter, like The recent standoff in Caledonia, Ontario is the floor of the downtown police station what happened with Neil Stonechild? merely a symptom of a much greater problem Can we forget about how there is still – the disdainful manner by which elected by a Vancouver Police Department governments address Aboriginal land claims. constable. His rain-soaked clothes left no justice for Dudley George, who was a wet streak on the concrete floor as the killed by the Ontario Provincial Police Aboriginal peoples in Canada have waited long at Ipperwash? enough for their treaty rights to be recognized officer dragged him from the paddy- and land claims dealt with. The Six Nations wagon to the elevator. Minutes later, his Historically, Indigenous people are filed a claim to the land in 1995 and 10 years still motionless wet body was dragged the victims of the police forces of this later, with the claim still unresolved, the Ontario back from the elevator and in to a paddy country, who were used to steal the land government gave Henco Industries the go-ahead wagon. Hours later he was found frozen to begin development on the disputed land. and force treaties on Indigenous nations to death in a downtown East Side alley. to build the racist and colonial Canada It was this decision by the Ontario Government that exists today. The nature of Canada that prompted the Six Nations to reclaim the land Frank Paul was a Miqmaq man who on February 28, 2006. The members of the Six lived in the downtown East Side. He hasn’t changed since then. It survives Nations remained on the land in peaceful protest was known to police and was taken into off of pilfering the land and resources for 51 days until the OPP escalated the tense custody twice on that cold December of Indigenous people, and needs to situation by raiding the protester’s camp in the day for being intoxicated in public. The continue to crush us as a people. early morning of April 20, 2006, only one day first time, he was taken to the police jail, The Push for a Public Inquiry after Premier McGuinty promised a peaceful and put in the ‘drunk tank’ to sober up resolution to this dispute. The protest is now in On December 6th, 2005, family, friends its 76th day. while his wet clothes were drying. He was released early that evening, walking and community members gathered The PSAC calls on the government to negotiate at Main and Hastings for a memorial meaningfully and to peacefully resolve the Six out of the station unassisted. Two hours later, he was picked up by officers leaning against an alley wall as the mercury rally in the name of Frank Paul, but also Nations land claim as well as all current and in recognition of all of the Indigenous future Aboriginal land claims. The PSAC feels again, intoxicated and unable to speak dropped in another freezing December that if this and other land claims were dealt with coherently or stand, and was carried to night. He died of hypothermia. people who have suffered at the hands of Canada’s colonial police. It was seven in a fair and timely manner, the most recent the paddy wagon. He was taken back to Seven years and still no justice standoff in Caledonia, as well as the tragedies the police jail, where police surveillance years to the day of his freezing death that occurred in Ipperwash, Oka, and Gustafsen tapes showed him being dragged like Seven years later and still no one has been in a Vancouver alley. Dozens of people Lake, could have been avoided. a wet bag of garbage across the floor. held accountable for the death of Frank Paul. lined the street and marched to the Police Members of the Public Service Alliance of Despite the fact that he laid there After a three-year internal investigation, the headquarters downtown, continuing to Canada stand in solidarity with Aboriginal motionless, the sergeant on duty who VPD suspended the constable for one day demand for a public inquiry in to his peoples seeking peaceful resolutions to and the sergeant for two days, and made death. Aborignal land claims in Canada. knew Frank Paul determined that he did not believe he was intoxicated. He recommendations on how to deal with Frank Paul was a victim of the VPD. He
DARFUR: Imperialist Excuse for cases of drunkenness in the future. was a victim of the poverty that Canada On June 20th, 2003, the graphic imposed on him as an Indigenous person, Military Intervention in Sudan surveillance photos showing Frank Paul and a victim of alcoholism that is the in the police station were released to the legacy of the colonial war on Indigenous public, unleashing more public protests people in this country. He was a victim By Shannon Bundock to this senseless death. More and more of Canada, where all his life his human people were demanding a public inquiry rights were denied. He lived in the On May 16th resolution 1679 was passed in to the tragic and avoidable death, most populated Indigenous postal code in the United Nations Security Council with groups support ranging from the in Canada, the downtown East Side, (UNSC). Within resolution 1679, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs all the way to which suffers from the highest poverty UNSC has endorsed the replacement of Vancouver City Council. Dirk Ryneveld, rates, the same as most Native Reserves. the African Union Mission in Sudan by Police Complaint Commissioner, He suffered because his life was not UN troops. To facilitate this, resolution originally recommended a public inquiry valued by the racist police force, as Neil 1679 has made a one-week deadline for but was rejected by Solicitor General, Stonechild and Gerald Chenery’s lives the deployment of an “assessment mission Rich Coleman. Despite public pressure, were not valued by the police force. Just on all relevant aspects of the mandate of Frank Paul’s case eventually became as the lives of Dudley George, Matthew the United Nations operation in Darfur, one of 50 cases of police misconduct Dumas, Darryl Night, and J.J. Harper including force structure, additional that were deemed too insignificant for a were not valued either. In a country where force requirements, potential troop- public inquiry. we make up only 3.3% of the population, contributing countries and a detailed we make up more than 18% of prison financial evaluation of future costs”. The death, the cover-up, and the populations. Is this any coincidence? insignificance that is blanketing this case While the discussion on sending UN We need to continue to demand a public is known all too well in Vancouver and troops into Darfur is not new, this latest inquiry into Frank Paul’s death, and we across Canada. On December 26th, 2004, UNSC resolution is another step for need to expose the racist and colonial Gerald Chenery, a 29-year-old Nisga’a a carefully constructed case, which is crimes that Canada continues to commit man, was shot dead by 11 bullets fired setting the stage for expanded imperialist Demonstration against UN against Indigenous people. intervention in Sudan. intervention in Sudan. The foundation of the discussion on a UN deployment is built on the argument that and killing many. Darfur, Sudan is in need of “peacekeepers”. “The al Qaeda terrorists lost a base in slave trade. In 2003, a conflict escalated between two While this is an ongoing and horrific Afghanistan, but they operate in many other Following the initial European invasions organizations in the Darfur region (the situation, it is unfortunately not places. We’re on their trail, from Pakistan, and colonial projects, the emerging giant unprecedented. Throughout Africa, to the Philippines, to the Horn of Africa.” Justice and Equality Movement–JEM th of the United States parachuted into and the Sudan Liberation Army–SLA) disease, starvation, poverty, violence - President George Bush to the 85 Annual Africa for further plundering of resources against the Sudanese government. JEM - the wounds of decades of colonialism American Legion National Convention, and access to markets. In recent years, the and SLA were demanding rights, equality, - kill millions. What is different about August 2003. US has increased its military presence in representation and an end to persecution the crisis in Darfur is that it has been Africa is a continent that was plundered to Africa, with a few hundred in Djibouti as by the Sudanese government of the consciously taken up as a torch by the utmost depths by colonialist powers. part of “Operation Enduring Freedom”, a indigenous black African population imperialist countries (e.g. US & Canada) Fifty-four countries sit atop a land mission of the so-called “War on Terror”. in Sudan. The government responded and the UN as a problem for the “world stripped of wealth and resources. These More troops in Africa should come as no to attacks on government sites, with air powers” to “solve”. countries house masses of people forced surprise as the world powers slip into an raids. Following this the Janjaweed, a Why does the US suddenly care about into poverty, their brothers and sisters government supported militia, terrorized Africa? scattered across the world after being Continues on Page the bombed out villages, raping, injuring violently abducted and sold off in a global
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 workers that amounts to 10% of Bolivia’s entire landmass, and brought in 5,000 Towards a continental revolution Cuban doctors to begin a national health care program. He has arrested corrupt gas and airline executives, signed an important new trade and solidarity agreement with Bolivia: the spirit of Che Cuba and Venezuela, and nationalized the entire gas reserves in Bolivia. Bolivia has been caught in the gears of a Guevara after 40 years historic revolutionary process. Within this process Evo Morales has been lifted up on By Ivan Drury the shoulders of the people who have, for years, marched to surround the old capital La Paz, to blockade the new capital Sucre, ...The people who rose up in the last to occupy the mines, and fight in the streets several years got riddled with bullets, but for sovereignty and justice. The poor and they prevented the gas from evaporating illiterate Indigenous majority in Bolivia into the hands of other, have crafted Morales into a tool through the breathtaking power of their hopes, unprivatized the water in Cochabamba dreams, and collective action. With this and La Paz. tool in hand they will now set upon the task overthrew governments governed from of remaking Bolivia in their own image, abroad to smash the poverty, illiteracy, hunger, and said no to the income tax and other imperialist domination, and colonial rule wise orders from the International that has driven them to the end of the old Monetary Fund. road. A new road must be carved out of the unknown. -Eduardo Galeano, (from) The Second Founding of Bolivia The battle against the enemy at home: Lessons from Venezuela Above all else, Evo Morales was elected the new president of Bolivia on December With the opening of a second front in the 18th 2005 based on two important factors. imperialist war drive from the Middle First, his promise to nationalize the vast East to Latin America through the 2004 gas resources of Bolivia. And second, the invasion of Haiti the US has served notice mass confidence of workers, peasants, and to Cuba, Venezuela, and now Bolivia, that the 80% Indigenous majority that he would the US will not hesitate to take that which do it. On May 1st 2006 he kept his word. is not “given.” Morales is aware of this threat. When a terrorist bombing rocked On Mayday, at 12:30pm, while President La Paz in March, Morales responded Evo Morales announced the nationalization quickly, “The United States claims to of all hydrocarbons in the poorest country fight terrorism, yet Americans come to put in South America, Bolivian troops occupied bombs in our hotels. This is an attack on the offices, oil fields, factories, and gas Bolivian democracy.’’ stations of every oil company in Bolivia. With them, they brought a message, clearly The lesson is not lost either on the extreme- spelled out in the banners hung from the minority ruling class elite in Bolivia. While corporate executive suite windows as well this imperialist threat is directed primarily as the neon signs of filling stations. The Bolivian miner with the image of Che Guevara on his helmet. against the oppressed people in Latin America, and plied indirectly against rival
banners read, “Nationalized: Property of imperialist powers, the threat is also felt by Bolivians.” the ruling class in Bolivia and throughout And the banners flirted with the winds of Latin America. These henchmen of change. Picking up where the banners left imperialism have long enjoyed support off, these winds carried a message from and cooperation with imperialism, but that impoverished, backwards, landlocked comfort threatens to change dramatically Bolivia to the home bases of these as the level of imperialist competition in imperialist corporations, to the lands Latin America cancels out “fair” diplomatic that Bolivia’s wealth was the sole legal negotiation, contracts and deals. property of, until the nationalizations of The pressure of imperialist war expands Mayday. In the words of Bolivia’s new like helium into the balloon of the Latin state oil company advisor, Manuel Morales American puppet ruling classes, demanding Oliviera, this message is, “As of now, there more and more of them, at the very time is a new important actor […]: the Bolivian that the bayonets of the oppressed people in state and government.” their nations press with greater and greater It is true that the nationalization of Bolivia’s determination in from the outside. The gas reserves and production facilities was contradiction cannot sustain – something’s a significant move, and even a historic gotta give. In Bolivia, this ‘something’ was Bolivian president Evo Morales with Venezuelan president the election of Morales to president. But development in the development of the Hugo Chavez. revolutionary process in Bolivia and Latin rather than resolve the crisis, this election America, but this process did not begin raised the conflict between oppressed with the nationalization of Bolivian gas, Children: Latin America’s New Left” organizations to connect himself with these people in Bolivia and imperialism to a spurred by the election of Morales movements and their needs and demands. higher and more decisive level. and it will not end there. th and his relations with Fidel Castro in By his 100 day in office he had initiated a Morales is the product of a fierce class It is true that the governments of imperialist Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. literacy program based on Cuba’s historic countries and heads of corporations reacted struggle in Bolivia. In the two years that The second installment of this series literacy campaign, raised the minimum led up to his election, three presidents were with outrage to the nationalization of was called “Socialism’s Hothouse”. It wage by 10% and announced plans for a Bolivian gas. In the words of a Wall Street knocked out of power by the powerful warns, “[Morales’s] inauguration comes 100% increase in the months to come, cut mobilizations of workers, peasants, and Energy analyst quoted in the Financial as Latin America’s left undergoes an 57% of his own wage and the wages of all Times, “This sends a very negative signal Indigenous people. These movements more extraordinary rebirth.” […] “’Latin government ministers and redirected the than proved their ability to remove puppets to the oil and gas market. It is a signal of America is up for grabs,’ says Larry Birns, money to education, set the foundation for rising nationalism that could spread from from power – corrupt presidents are director of Washington-based Council the formation probably Bolivia’s Bolivia and Venezuela to Mexico and on Hemispheric Affairs. ‘At the very of a national as far as Kuwait.” Or, if you prefer, the #1 export to Miami time when the US has one of the most a s s e m b l y – but in each case threat of Spain’s Prime Minister Zapatero conservative administrations, it’s dealing to rewrite that the nationalization could force Spain the movement was with a Latin America that is moving to the the Bolivian unable to generate a to “reconsider” its aid commitment to left.’” Or more plainly, in the words of a constitution Bolivia. Or the accusation of US Secretary leadership capable of US Embassy Analyst in Bolivia in April b e g i n n i n g taking power. With of State Condoleeza Rice that Morales 2004, “The conditions Che didn’t find are in August, was engaging in “demagoguery”. But their each successive here now.” begun a insurrection, the concern is not contained within this single land reform act. Out of these conditions have emerged people of Bolivia revolutionary actions by the new Bolivian p r o g r a m found themselves Che’s Children government. In his first 30 days in for the back at square redistribution From January 27 to 30th, 2006 the National office, Morales carried out hundred of Bolivians rally at Morales’ pre- one, with a new meetings with community and movement of farmland to head on the same Post ran a series of articles called “Che’s peasants and innaugural ceremony. January 21 2006.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 old colonial-state machinery. Into this the pre-inauguration airport handshake discriminated.”(our emphasis vacuum of leadership emerged Evo. His between Morales and Fidel was more than added) It means that Bolivia party Movement Towards Socialism diplomacy. Their embrace meant even more will be able to build a national (MAS) went into the election with a than the agreement for 50,000 Bolivians to health care system with its own simple 10 point program: Coca growers receive free eye surgeries and free training doctors, educated in Cuba. It rights, food sovereignty, land reform, in Cuba for 5,000 Bolivians as doctors means that Bolivia will have the against bureaucracy, against corruption for the majority-poor and healthcare-less raw materials and the technical in government, regional autonomy, Bolivians. Framed by the massive Havana expertise they need to develop development of industry, constituent airport banner emblazoned with early their nation industrially. It assembly, against neo-liberalism, and at Cuban-revolutionary Jose Marti’s words means, again in the words of the top, the nationalization of gas. “My Homeland is Humanity,” the sight of the Joint Communique, “The This program represented, in a very basic Fidel and the newly elected representative leaders agree that only a new way, the demands of the workers and of the revolutionary process in Bolivia arm and genuine integration based peasants movement that had brought him in arm is a welcome sight for millions of on the principles of mutual into power to do the historically necessary working and poor people in Bolivia, in aid, solidarity and respect job of winning Bolivia back from the Latin America, and throughout the world. for self-determination can clutches of imperialism. The movement It is no coincidence that two days after his provide a suitable response placed him there enthusiastically, but meeting, with Fidel and Chavez in Havana to the level of social justice, although 54% of the vote is the largest to sign a trade-solidarity agreement with cultural diversity, equity and margin by which any president has ever them, Morales nationalized Bolivia’s the right to development which won in Bolivia, it is far from unanimous. gas reserves. Bolivia’s step to join the all people deserve and claim For some ultra-left political elements Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas for.” It meant that Bolivia had officially joined the bloc of independent anti-imperialist countries in the Americas. Victory to the Bolivian revolution! Towards a Celebration of the announcement that continental revolution in the Bolivia will nationalize oil. Americas! April 30 2006. “Companeros and companeras, as I said in Tiwanaku [on January 21 at the of change in Bolivia. He is the product of Indigenous presidential inauguration], if I a racing factory of change. Bent over the am not advancing enough, then push me.” belts, greasing the wheels, tightening the - President Evo Morales, in a bolts of the production lines in this factory, statement recounting his first month in are the millions of Indigenous people, power, March 13th, 2006 peasants, miners, and workers of Bolivia. As far as the workers in this factory are The spirit of Che Guevara is unquenchable concerned, Morales is not a finished internationalism and relentless international product, and the contradictions, pains class struggle against imperialism, and and super-exploitation that have driven capitalism, towards socialist revolution. Bolivians to the brink of revolution are not Che lives on in Bolivia, Venezuela, and resolved. Cuba. Oppressed people throughout Latin America and the world have their The struggle between the oppressed eyes on Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba. people of Bolivia and imperialism (and The ingredients in the processes that are the Bolivian ruling class) is far from Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez. burning, growing, learning, developing, over. People in Bolivia, both of oppressed progressing, and getting all the time and ruling classes, know this. It is the
within the oppressed peoples movement – including leadership of the trade union federation COB – Morales’ basically nationalist program was nowhere near radical enough. These elements, both within Bolivia and especially in the ‘left’ outside of Bolivia and in imperialist countries, failed to see that the election of Morales represented a historic step forward for the working class and oppressed people in Bolivia. They failed to see that this nationalist program would inevitably place Morales and the movement on the path of confrontation with the capitalist ruling class in Bolivia and their imperialist lords. Dropped into the boiling cauldron of the contradictions between the national interests of Bolivia and global imperialism, Morales’ program is being stretched to its limits and is destined to burst at the seams to emerge as a struggle against capitalism. Morales evolves with Bolivia “[Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are] the commanders of the forces for the liberation of the Americas and the world.” - Evo Morales, Dec 30, 2005 in Havana The power of the example of Cuba is seen in the developing leadership and the Workers and students demonstration in Bolivia. developing revolutionary movements in January 18 1979. Venezuela and Bolivia. And the power of these nations united have caused a sea th change in Latin America. (ALBA) on April 29 was no small thing. stronger in these countries are not at all tremendous, task of working, poor, It means that Morales’ promise to re- particular to these countries. But the and oppressed people in Bolivia, and On December 30th, within days of his nationalize the Bolivian airline is a reality. struggle is very far from over. The reason especially, in the belly of the imperialist election, and a good month before his It means that, in the words of the joint that the revolutionary process in Bolivia beast in Canada, to complete this process. inauguration, Bolivian president-elect communiqué issued after the signing of and Venezuela can be called revolutionary At the same time, we must be on guard Morales flew to Cuba to meet with Cuban ALBA, “in the particular case of Bolivia, is not because they have accomplished and defend the gains of the Bolivian president Fidel Castro and cast a friendship they shall work on the complicated task revolutions that Morales and Chavez can revolutionary process with everything between Cuba and a new Bolivia. of making the best possible use of natural hang on their walls or pin on their chests we’ve got, education organization, In the shadow of the guns of war aimed resources such as gas, oil, and others, as badges. agitation and mobilization. The Bolivian from Washington and Miami at Cuba, for the development of its agricultural The great fuss from the camp of working and oppressed masses now more Venezuela, and anyone in Latin America potential and the training of skilled human exploitation, imperialism and capitalism than ever need our solidarity and support. that allies themselves with Cuba and resource, so that the benefits may improve is that Morales himself is not the engine Let’s roll on... VIVA BOLIVIA! Venezuela’s struggle against imperialism, the lives of the poor, the exploited and the
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 Continued From Page resource rich, strategic land has direct colonialism to puppet imperialist pillage and control. future of a US-patrolled Sudan, economic crisis and push been intensified. dictatorships. Proxy governments Hundreds of years of social, one can look to Iraq – 200,000 themselves for wider and deeper Similar to many countries in the throughout the world are political and economic crisis dead Iraqis, daily firefights, market and resource access. The Middle East and Latin America, diplomatically supported or has led to the development of bombings, air raids. crisis they face is characterized by the end of colonial governance of opposed by western powers an unsettled population that is These are only three examples rising unemployment, inflation, African countries has not meant based on the balance of forces, opening a fight for sovereignty in a list of hundreds of and overproduction- as a result an end to colonial intervention. imperialist rivalries and what and political control of their UN, NATO and US led of the rapid decline the fight to Like many third world countries, long and short-term gains can country. interventions. Unequivocally, control the largest regions of a shift was orchestrated from be had. Today, as the occupation The UN and US both appear in no case has the final result of Iraq sits at the centre of the to side with the “rebel” SLA of such interventions been in US’s military foreign policy, and JEM groups and against favor of the inhabitants of the their fight for political and the Sudanese government. The country. What could possibly economic hegemony colors each threat of SLA and JEM – and make Sudan any different? international move. more importantly the sentiment The calls for intervention The era of imperialist war and that they reflect – is not just in Darfur, while often well occupation threatening to the government meaning, are misguided. What In the Caribbean, the Canada- of Sudan. For US interests, a the people of Darfur, the people US-France-UN occupation of successful revolt and change of of Sudan, people of Africa and Haiti is currently being used as government in Sudan, has the all oppressed nations around a launching pad for imperialist potential to trigger uprisings the world need is an end to any intervention throughout Latin across the continent. Intervening and all foreign interventions America. In the Middle East, with UN or NATO troops also in their countries. They need the NATO occupation of serves to take the reins of a to drive out the parasites of Afghanistan serves as the first potentially explosive situation, the International Monetary base for expansion in that and ensuring that it doesn’t get Fund and World Bank, which region. The targeting of the out of hand. work for imperialist countries Sudanese government follows Hands off Sudan! to keep oppressed nations in this same formula. The crisis in The people of Darfur will not impossible debt. They need to Darfur is a convenient excuse benefit from intervention by reclaim their economies from for an intervention in Sudan, and the US, the UN or NATO. To foreign domination. They need expansion from there. glimpse the future of a UN- to drive out the imperialist While the United States cries patrolled Sudan, one can look interests, which plunder their crocodile tears for Darfur, their to Haiti, where UN troops resources and steal their labor. plans for entering into Sudan routinely oversee the massacres People across the world, must follow the cold calculation of Haitian people by the Canada- trust the capacity of the people of what is best for America’s trained Haitian National Police. of Sudan that they can solve the national interests. Entering To glimpse the future of a crisis that they face. The antiwar Sudan with UN troops, or NATO-patrolled Sudan, one movement must recognize the potentially NATO troops, can look to Afghanistan, where maneuverings of imperialism means a deeper expansion of NATO forces are undertaking for what they are and take up the imperialist era of war and house-to-house raids, shooting the demands: occupation into Africa. Afghans at military checkpoints, HANDS OFF SUDAN! There are other factors in this and participating in “counter- HANDS OFF DARFUR! Demonstration against UN intervention calculation that relate to the terrorism” missions against NO TO IMPERIALIST in Sudan. interest that the US has in Afghans who fight for self- INTERVENTION IN maintaining Sudan’s stability for determination. To glimpse the AFRICA!
HAZEM JAMJOUM, OF AL-AWDA AND MOSTAFA HENAWAY, OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT TOUR RECEIVED A WARM WELCOMING IN VANCOUVER University of Toronto Arab Students’ By Shannon Bundock an important position as a nation Collective, and a founding member resisting occupation for 58 years of the Coalition Against Israel’s by the Zionist settler-state of Israel. March 2006 marked the third War Crimes in Toronto spoke at The Global Week of Action Against anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. many events, alongside Mostafa War and Occupation put a spotlight In cities and towns across the world, Henaway of the Toronto Solidarity on Palestine with presentations people came to the streets to demand Project, Ontario Coalition Against given throughout the week by an end to the US-led imperialist Poverty and the International Hazem Jamjoum and Mostafa war and occupation, which has Solidarity Movement. Henaway. As a small magnification claimed the lives of at least 200,000 While in Vancouver, Hazem and of one important aspect of the Iraqis since 2003. Throughout week, Fire This Time has printed the week prior to and following Mostafa spoke at the university th and college events as well as at the the presentation given by Hazem March 18 2006, Vancouver was Jamjoum at the Vancouver city- abuzz with anti-war picket actions, city-wide forum in Vancouver and at Mobilization Against War and wide forum March 20th under meetings, forums, and cultural the title “Self Determination for events organized by local anti-war Occupation’s all-day conference, “Against the Imperialist War Palestine, Understanding the coalition, Mobilization Against War Hazem Jamjoum Speaking at a MAWO forum Palestinian Struggle and Peace and Occupation (MAWO). Drive! For the Self-determination “Self Determination for Palestine! Understanding the of Oppressed Nations”. in the Middle East”. At this event, The “Global Week of Action Against Palestinian Struggle and Peace in the Middle East” . and throughout the week of events, The impact of the Global Week of War and Occupation and for March 21 2006. Hazem spoke on the occupation of Self-Determination of Oppressed Action Against War and Occupation Palestine by the Zionist Apartheid Nations” began on March 13th, in was widespread – campus antiwar state of Israel, with a focus on the in Canada. In addition, the week the streets, drawing dozens of people forums at Simon Fraser University groups were mobilized to organize Right of Return for Palestinians. incorporated a special space for and major media. On that day (SFU) and Capilano College coordinated events; attendance was On the occasion of formation of those countries coming under threat th MAWO organized a picket action on March 20 , both entitled high at all of the educational forums State of Israel –15 of May 1948- we as a new “axis’ of evil”: Iran, Cuba in response to the Prime Minister “Colonialism and the Fight for and the events were lively with choose the following excerpt of his and Venezuela. Harper’s March 12th “surprise Self-Determination”, a Vancouver notably active participation and March 20th presentation. Subtitles th visit” to Afghanistan and the Following the March 13th picket, city-wide forum March 20 under interest from those in attendance. are from FTT. the global week of action was the title “Self Determination for The thread running throughout the Canadian government’s escalating Self Determination for Palestine- jam-packed - including a forum Palestine! Understanding the week was that the anniversary of the occupation of Afghanistan. Understanding the Palestinian on March 15th entitled “Racist Palestinian Struggle and Peace invasion of Iraq is part the opening With the picket action setting the Struggle and Peace in the Middle Cartoons, Islamaphobia: the Roots in the Middle East”, and a forum of the era of war and occupation. tone, the character of the Global East and Consequences”, a forum at at University of British Columbia The antiwar movement must not Week of Action Against War and st Langara College on March 17th titled (UBC) on March 21 “Is Israel an stop to commemorate the invasion, Today I am going to talk about Occupation was one of urgency. It “Colonialism, War, Occupation and Apartheid State?” but rather incorporate Iraq into the the development of what methods not only marked the 2003 invasion the Struggle for Self-Determination center of demands and consistent Zionism has used to colonize of Iraq, but also focused on the Featured in this week of activity of Oppressed Nations”, an antiwar organizing for self-determination Palestine and essentially to assert expansion and development of were two guest speakers from demonstration on March 18th, an for all oppressed nations and an its domination and hegemony over the era of war and occupation Toronto. Hazem Jamjoum, of the all-day antiwar conference and end to ongoing imperialist war the Indigenous population – the throughout Afghanistan, Haiti, Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return cultural celebration during the drives. Palestinians. Palestine, and Indigenous Nations Coalition, an organizer with the day and evening of March 19th, two Along side Iraq, Palestine holds
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 The Birth of Zionist Movement countries. trees. and that their land be returned to who are internally displaced is also You can’t really understand what In 1947-48 the British, as a result For the refugees themselves it was them. 15% of the land then is given considered ‘absentee property’, is happening in Palestine, without of becoming very weakened after a very intense period of ethnic to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), although they are not absentees. understanding what Zionism is. WWII, had to withdrawal from cleansing. In this few months period, and most of the rest goes under The Israeli genius legal mind Essentially, the Zionist movement many of the colonies, including 800,000 people being expelled in the authority of the Israel Lands created a category for them – they is a European Jewish movement Palestine. The Zionist movement all directions, 13,000 people were Administration (ILA). 50% of the are “present absentees”. There are that came out in Europe in the took the chance to unilaterally killed. A strategy was used of Board of Governors of the ILA are 250,000 “present absentees” in late 19th century. What the Zionist declare that the state of Israel was massacring people and publicizing members of the JNF and the policy Israel, who are Palestinians that are movement advocated was the now independent, and was a state the massacres to scare others off. It that the land is for Jewish-use-only internally displaced. creation of a Jewish state on the land that was in existence, on May 15th, wasn’t just forcible expulsion, it was begins to be implemented by the In 1965, Israel passed a law that re- of Palestine. The Zionist movement 1948. also using psychological warfare to ILA as well. zoned many of the villages to make started off as a tiny minority within They didn’t just do this randomly, convince people that they Israelis 93% of the land of Israel cannot them “non-residential agricultural the Jewish community. It was also they had already begun attacked by the religious part of the preparations. By 1947, they realized Jewish community because what it the contradiction that they were advocated was building the Jewish in. The Jewish land ownership in State before the Messiah came. This 1946-1947 that the Jewish National reflected the fact that the Zionist Fund and other arms of the World movement was actually a secular Zionist Organization had been able movement, it wasn’t a religious to acquire amounted to no more and movement. 6%-7% of the land. Also in terms By 1897 the decision within the of population, in most districts Zionist movement had come that the Jewish population is a tiny Palestine would be the land that minority with only one exception, they would want to create a Jewish which is Jaffa. This was actually State on. They began to organize the locust of Jewish migration very seriously to reach their goal of into Palestine and this is where Tel creating a Jewish State on the land Aviv is. Jaffa was one of the most of Palestine. important Palestinian cities, it was In 1897 the organization that was a port. It was also the city that my set up to create Israel on the land grandmother was kicked out of, at of Palestine, was called the World this point in our story. They realized Zionist Organization (WZO), that if they were going to create a which still exists. From 1897 they Jewish State, they would have to recognized that what they wanted somehow get rid of the Indigenous A Palestinian women protesting the presence to do was organize support from population. There was over 1.2 of Israeli occupation soldiers. the ruling classes of the different Million Palestinians on the land, super powers at the time – they and no more than 600, 000 Jewish people on the land. were approaching and you had be owned by or controlled by land” and so all of these villages tried with Germany, France, but better run, or else they are going Indigenous Palestinians. Between became unrecognized by the state the most intense effort was with Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians to kill you. Many people feared for 1948-1967, the Israelis concentrate overnight. So they don’t exist on Britain. They finally got Britain to So they began to systematically their lives. For the most part the the Palestinian population into any Israeli official map, and today adopt Zionism as part of Britain’s remove and expel Palestinians people who became refugees lived ghettos and concentration towns, 100,000 Palestinians live in these own strategic interests in the from their villages and their towns, in refugee camps in neighboring mostly in the cities of Palestine. unrecognized villages. They don’t Middle East. In 1917, just as WWI systematically destroying the states, in the West Bank and Gaza, Mobility in and out of these ghettos get any electricity, water – none of is finishing up, Lord Arthur Balfour villages and the towns. In the period Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. becomes very difficult, you have an the things that a government would of the British cabinet sends a letter of 1947-48, of the over 1.2 million ID card that says you are Arab and normally supply. Also because it to one of the biggest Zionists, and Palestinians living on the land of according to this ID card, they can is re-zoned as non-residential, the also biggest capitalists in Britain at Palestine, 800,000 were expelled. After the ethnic cleansing of tell you where you can and cannot houses that people live in and which the time, who was Lord Rothschild. In many cases these were people Palestine, Israel was accepted into be. What it means usually is that have been there for hundreds of [the letter was] basically saying the United Nations [UN] at the you cannot leave the ghetto without years are now slated for destruction.
that the British governement looks On a weekly to monthly basis the favourably upon the creation of Israeli military will go into these the Jewish Strate on the land of unrecognized villages and destroy Palestine. the homes of these [non-Jewish] After World War I, the British took citizens of Israel. control of Palestine, which they had Annexation of West Bank and already promised it to the Jewish Gaza Strip people. In 1967 Israel occupies the West Jewish National Fund and Creation Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights of Israel and Sinai Peninsula. In order to One of the most important maximize the Israeli control of the institutions set up by the WZO land and minimize the number of the creation of the Israeli state is Indigenous Palestinians, the main the Jewish National Fund (JNF). tenet is to export the Jewish civilian In its constitution, the purpose population of Israel into the West of the JNF is to acquire land, by Bank to de facto, on the ground, purchase or otherwise in the land start taking land. Throughout the of “Greater Israel”; from the Nile 1970’s-80’s the geography of the to the Euphrates. Any piece of land West Bank and Gaza is changed. that the Jewish National Fund did 250,000 Palestinians are ethnically acquire, by any means that it did cleansed from the West Bank and acquire it, would be for the sole then life is made miserable in the purpose of Jewish use and serving West Bank and Gaza. the interest of Jewish people as By the early 1990’s, a number of defined by the WZO. Another arm of factors led the Palestine Liberation the World Zionist Organization was Hazem Jamjoum Speaking at a MAWO forum “Self Determination for Palestine! Organization (PLO) leadership to the Jewish Colonization Agency. Understanding the Palestinian Struggle and Peace in the Middle East” . see itself as needing to talk to Israel The Jewish Agency, as it became March 21 2006. on Israel’s terms. This brought about later, was to settle Jewish people, the Oslo Agreement. The reason to bring them in from other parts who lived in villages that were behest of the United States, even permission from an [Israeli] military that this agreement did not end the of the world, particularly Europe at destroyed by the Zionist movement though one of the conditions for commander. Palestinians with conflict was that the Oslo Agreement this point. Both the Jewish National in 1947-48. Over 530 villages and being accepted into the UN was citizenship in Israel are governed was nothing more and nothing less Fund and an arm of the Jewish 11 towns destroyed; razed to the that Israel allow the return of the under military law, while the rest than Israel getting the PLO to agree Agency operate as charities here in ground. Right after the declaration [Palestinian] refugees, something of the Jewish Israelis are governed to the Apartheid map. All of the Canada. of the state, most of the lands of called UN Resolution 194. [This under civilian law. peace agreements subsequent to these villages were transferred to resolution] demands both that the Other manifestations of the system that, all the proposed maps look the All through the 30’s and into the the Jewish National Fund [JNF] or refugees be allowed to return and 40’s, there is a massive influx of of Apartheid in Israel is that a same – three Bantustans divided up. the Israeli Lands Authority. What that their properties be restituted to number of the Palestinians whose Not satisfied with this, but along Jewish refugees into Palestine, the JNF did was build big National the refugees. fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. This villages were destroyed, did not the same lines, the Israelis began to Parks. These big National Parks Israel as an Apartheid State cross an international boundary and build a wall. This served to encircle is also in part due to the fact that were built and declared “parks” countries like Canada and the became displaced within Israel. the Palestinian Bantustans into so that no one could come and say Israel then implemented anApartheid open-air prisons. United States and Britain closed “This is our land” – [the response strategy on the Palestinians that The land that was stolen from off their borders to Jewish refugees would be] “no actually it is State remained. One of the main tenets the refugees under Israeli law This is the situation now. This is coming from Europe, as a result of land”. The JNF operates as an becomes for Israel not to allow the is called absentee property. It is all under the guise of something anti-Semitic policies in this country, environmental organization and can return of the refugees, which is the under the custodian of ‘absentee illusive called the “peace process”, in the United States, in Britain, call itself a charity here in Canada: central demand of the Palestinian property’ in the Israeli ministry which is nothing more than a blue in Australia, and in several other because they build parks and plant struggle; that the refugees return of finance. The land of the people print for Apartheid.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 10 The Work of Karl Marx and the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century
By Ricardo Alarcon ideology, is not gospel in which much less with the imaginary to achieve, whose we are given Revealed Truth, disappearance of class struggle, enormous meaning Edited By Walter Lippmann set in stone and eternal, but an which some intended to convert no one will be A CubaNews translation by endless flow of suggestions in immoveable dogmas in rushed able to tear out Joe Bryak to keep working on with texts that inundated the planet at of the memory intelligence, in order to continue the beginnings of the last decade of the proletariat “Let us remember that he said researching and struggling for of the twentieth century. but which was a that it was not enough that the truth.” The collapse of the USSR and specific project- idea clamored to be made reality, the bankruptcy of the so-called -that is to say, but that it was also To take his work, on top of any other consideration, as a source “real socialism” gave way for a a human work, necessary that reality shout out of inspiration and guide for those triumphalist operation skillfully with virtues and to be made into idea.” - Franz who, like he, want not only to launched by the main centers of defects, glories Mehring explain the world but, more than imperialism which, nevertheless, and shadows, a anything, transform it, fighting could hardly hide their result of immense I will not attempt to delineate here sacrifice of a the ample and rich intellectual until achieving socialism. essentially defensive character with its apparently total and concrete people in production of Karl Marx, his We are not trying to find in his circumstances and deep analysis of capitalism definitive victory, capitalism, in texts data that may seem useful reality, entered a new phase that conditions likewise or the principal events of his to the analysis of contemporary concrete--and not era, nor will I touch upon his could be terminal, in which its reality, of capitalism as it is contradictions and limitations the outcome of a exemplary life as a social fighter today, something which he predestined and and revolutionary leader. I know are manifested with a frank didn’t try to do nor would have crudeness and in which arise universal idea. that these themes are familiar to been able to propose doing. you all. new, unsuspected possibilities The conversion Our obligation is to arm ourselves for revolutionary action. of the Soviet I propose, if you allow me, to with all of his ideology and from experience into a separate Marx from Marxism. That paradox perhaps may Ricardo Alarcon that build a theory and practice explain the short duration of that paradigm for those With that I allude to the that corresponds with that reality triumphalism in the academic who in other places thoroughly penetrated many necessity of thinking of Marx and helps to transform it. level. Few today repeat that fought their own anti-capitalist organizations and individuals, as Marx, rather than from any battles, and the imperative of the versions of Marxism, There is probably no higher nonsense about the “end of and they couldn’t react rationally nor more urgent priority for history.” Not even Fukuyama obligation of defending it from its when the system that supported to imagine him declaring the inflamed and powerful enemies, challenges of the twenty-first socialists than this: to define does it, more busy these days their faith collapsed. They had a strategic conception and in criticizing the failure of the led to the subordination of a lived convinced that they were century, separating what is great part of the revolutionary essential of his work from what precisely delineate the tactics policies of Bush which are, part of an unbeatable force, and methods of struggle nevertheless, much due to his movement to the policies and owners and administrators others made of his work. Instead interests of the USSR, which did of embarking on the endless adequate for confronting the own laborious and wordy work. of truths scientifically capitalism that exists now. The The present crisis within the not always correspond to those demonstrated, and they marched succession of reviews of his of other peoples. The Cold War thinking that goes along with theoretical tools at our disposal U.S. neoconservative movement in an enthusiastic procession in
those who have claimed him as need to be sharpened for their suggests that not a few question and the division of the world into which, curiously, the founder their own, as well as with those efficient employment in this era now if they were the true winners two blocks of antagonistic states did not march, having declared, who have tried unsuccessfully that presents new challenges for of the Cold War. that threatened each other with with all naturalness, “I am not a to bury him, it is necessary to the revolutionary movement. Self-critical reflection is called mutual nuclear annihilation, Marxist.” rescue his fundamental legacy, These notes do not have any for on our side as well. reduced to a minimum the The myth destroyed, old that which makes him transcend other aim than contributing to capacity of critical thought and dogmatists were incapable of his era to be [with us] here and We should admit our own errors, reinforced dogmatism. the discussion of that crucial especially those that served as appreciating the new possibilities now in the struggle for human theme and obviously lack any In honor of the truth one must in the revolutionary movement, emancipation. fertile ground for the bourgeois pretension of exhausting it. manipulation of the destruction render homage to the numberless the spaces heretofore nonexistent I take as a starting point the They have been edited having in of the Soviet model. This is not men and women who sacrificed that were necessary to explore warning, not always heeded, of mind that which from the great the time for profound analysis of their lives, the greater part with audacity and creativity. Rosa Luxemburg: “The work unfinished text declared Rosa the failure of an experience that Capital of Marx, like all his Luxembourg: “Incomplete as now belongs to historians. But it they are, these two is inevitable that we underline volumes enclose here something that led to the values infinitely defeat and to its advantageous more precious than use by the enemy. any definitive and perfect truth, the That project--independently of spur for the labor Lenin and of the creative spirit of thought and that that animated the first years of the critical analysis and Bolshevik revolution--reduced judgment of ideas, Marxism to a determinist and which is what is mechanist school of thought, most genuine in transformed research into the theory that Karl dogma, thought into propaganda, Marx has left to until the point of confining it to a us.” condition of terminal hardening of the arteries. It constructed A n o t h e r a simplified “science” that May Day in Villa Clara. i n d i s p e n s a b l e thought it had demonstrated that May 1 2006. o b s e r v a t i o n : socialism would inevitably come The necessity about, by itself, as an unavoidable in total anonymity, and died There were those who, in of elaborating consequence of a predetermined a revolutionary heroically in any corner of the unsurpassed acrobatics, joined history and that that socialism planet defending the land of the “conquerors,” converting theory that brings would continue its march, also victory confronted the Soviets, its policies and its treason into their new religion. uncontestable, according to laws application in its own native soil, with what has been and rules codified in a strange But there is a growing number called neo-liberal as wrong as it may have been in of those who do not conform, ritual. Socialism, therefore, was more than a few cases. For them, g l o b a l i z a t i o n inevitable and invincible; with it are unsatisfied and rebel. All the has absolutely respect and admiration. But rhetoric about U.S. hegemony one would truly arrive to the end what is being considered now nothing to do of history. Not any socialism, falls to pieces with its bogging with a supposed is recognizing the very harmful down in Iraq, the undeniable but that one in particular, that consequences of that tendency. May Day in Havana. liquidation of which, with admirable struggle, contradictions and limitations of May 1 2006. Marxism and Lenin and the Bolsheviks tried The tendency to blindly “tail” its economy, the awakening of
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 11 masses that were supposed to be definitive formation has to take changed men are a product of asleep there, and the corruption place in constant interrelation different circumstances and of and moral fissure that undermine with practice, in a process in a modified education, forgets Visiting Cuba Through its political system. which both form an inseparable that it is men, precisely, who Their associates in Europe are whole. But we are not speaking make circumstances chanage the Eyes of a Young in the same boat. Accustomed of just any practice but that of and that even the educator needs as well to the “bloc” discipline a movement that is both “truly to be educated. This leads, Canadian Activist and “tailism,” they don’t arrive mass and truly revolutionary.” then, inevitably, to the division at the knowledge of the depth of When can a movement be defined of society in two parts, one of Memoir of a trip the insurmountable crisis of that as truly a mass movement and which is on top of society (this, with Adventure, which it was, but no longer is, when does it acquire the quality for example, in Robert Owen) omnipotent boss. of being truly revolutionary? “The coincidence of the Education and In Latin America and in other The answers will not be found modification of circumstances Politics! parts of the Third World, in a research laboratory, nor will and of human activity can only meanwhile, radical processes are they erupt from academic debate. be conceived and understood affirmed and plans are put forth Revolutionaries themselves rationally as revolutionary that seek to eliminate, or at least will have to create them, men practice.” reduce, imperialist domination. and women of flesh and blood, In the Second Declaration of OR acting from the masses, building Havana, Cubans proclaimed that For the first time, anti- their movement and trying to capitalist malaise is manifested, “the duty of every revolutionary How I Learned to make it ever more revolutionary. is to make revolution.” To make it means to create a new world Love Cuba! in spite of the obstacles and limitations that circumstances impose, in a ceaseless battle in Part 2 rooms. This is where we stayed which both man and reality will for most of the trip. go on transforming each other By Sophie Ziner Our bus into Havana brought us reciprocally. past carefully painted billboards, “A certain form of socialism will The wheels of our plane hit the promoting not perfume and cell hot tarmac at the Jose Marti phones, but literacy, community, emerge inevitably from the also safe sex, volunteer work, organic inevitable decay of capitalism” international airport in Havana, came to a stop, and with my gardening and mobilization. I -- Joseph A. Schumpeter heart beating hard in my chest, I noticed that there were people The prediction that I just climbed off the plane and set my standing alongside the road, cited has been the object of feet- for the first time, on Cuban people in suits, people dressed soil. The first thing to meet my for all sorts of work, and I asked implacable denunciation on someone if everyone was waiting the part of bourgeois thinkers. eyes was a huge sign, running the length of the building in for busses. They weren’t waiting In 1942 it was difficult to front of me reading “Patria es for busses, they were hitchhiking- see the fall of capitalism as Humanidad”- Humanity is my it turned out that in most cases, something inevitable. Its author, Homeland. At the end of the in Cuba it’s illegal not to pick nevertheless, did not cease nineteenth century Jose Marti someone up if you have space in believing in it until the end. said that short quote while your car! simultaneously and everywhere, The entire life of the genial fighting for Cuba’s independence in advanced countries and in Eight years afterward, just before Havana, compared to grey and Bolshevik leader can be from imperialist intervention. rainy Vancouver, was full of those left behind and is not described in that commitment. dying, he said: “Marx was wrong As I would learn over my next in his diagnosis of how capitalist colour and sounds, people and limited to the proletariat and A persistent legend attributes to week in Cuba, this powerful idea traffic, bikes, smoke and horns. other exploited sectors. This the author of Capital the saying society would fall; but he was has a presence everywhere in
is not only expressed today in “Man [sic] thinks as he lives,” not wrong in the prediction that Cuba, and I would see its impact Old buildings and old cars the struggles that we could call which more than a few militants finally it would fall.” everywhere we visited. were interspersed with lush and “classics”--between classes and still repeat, without warning of In 1950 U.S. capitalism reached expansive community gardens, nations that are exploited and the mistake nor of its paralyzing The group I was traveling with, the zenith of its hegemony. It was Pastors for Peace, is a US mangos dripping off trees behind exploiters--but in those that effects. The relation between the only nuclear power, it hadn’t based solidarity group, which fences, red tomatoes peeking are added, at times with more man and his surroundings is of vigor, those that demand the A section of Havana Airport. preservation of the environment, or work for the rights of women and discriminated people and those excluded because of gender, ethnicity or religion. A diverse group, multicolor, in answers will not be found which there is no shortage of contradictions and paradoxes in a research laboratory, grows in front of the dominant “ system. It is not yet the rainbow nor will they erupt that announces the end of the storm. Spontaneity characterizes it; it needs articulation and from academic debate. coherence that need to be has traveled to Cuba collecting out through rows of beans. The stimulated without sectarianism, Revolutionaries themselves and bringing humanitarian aid Malecón, a long broad boulevard running the length of the shore without being carried away with “ through the US for the last 16 wildness. The great challenge of years, intentionally breaking the in Havana, looked just like the revolutionaries, of communists, will have to create them, US law in a symbolic gesture pictures I had seen, only on the days we were visiting, it was is to define our part, the place that against the US blockade of Cuba. Having crossed the US/ not full of the millions of people we should occupy in this battle. men and women of flesh marching in one of Cuba’s famous For that we need a theory. Mexican border at Reynosa with 180 tons of aid, the 150 of us mobilizations. In that sense one must return to and blood “Caravanistas” had gone on to The first few days in Havana were the well known but forgotten Tampico, where the busloads packed with events and visits. definition of Lenin: “A correct of goods had been loaded onto We got to visit churches, farms, revolutionary theory is only barges, and we had boarded a schools, clinics; had evenings formed in a definitive manner in plane and flew to Cuba (See FTT with cultural performances and close connection with practical Vol. 3 Issue1- for the first part of dancing (one night we got a experience in a movement my trip). special performance from one decisive importance for ethics of Cuba’s great hip hop crews- that is truly mass and truly suffered the devastation that the In Havana, I stayed in the Martin and politics and in order to world war had wreaked on the Anonimo Consejo which was revolutionary.” understand the Eleventh Thesis Luther King Memorial Centre, other developed countries, it a Cuban organization that help incredible). That theory, on a world scale, on Feuerbach. To transform the dominated Western Europe and co-organize the Caravan’s stay It was through these visits that does not exist in fact, to serve world the key is in the Third Latin America economically in Cuba, along with the Cuban we began to be introduced to the as a guide in the struggle to Thesis. Let’s remember the and politically, it possessed Council of Churches and the goals and principles that Cuba substitute the present order and statements of Marx: a superiority in science and Cuban Institute of Friendship works with. The Cuba we were transform it in the direction “The materialist theory that men technology. with the Peoples (ICAP). It’s a seeing was a place where peoples’ toward socialism. That theory are product of circumstances and big sunny building attached to a well-being was a priority. We At the middle of the last century Baptist Church, with dormitory learned about every thing from has to be formed and its of education, and that, therefore,
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 12 the world was quite different ever many more--in spite of raises an essential question from what it is today. By a route early death, misery, hunger--and that goes to the very roots of the programs to set up University permanently. that they probably did not foresee also those who in an unstoppable the political system that the satellite schools in remote areas, He talked about the spirit of we are now nearer the fulfillment spiral, are displaced toward the West has attempted to set as an to the program where every child internationalism that the school under the age of 7 is guaranteed is founded on, how at first the of the prophecy in which, enclaves of opulence. obligatory model for all. There one litre of milk a day. No Cuban paradoxically, both the author is an increasingly growing school was only open to students The Third World penetrates we met was a millionaire. No from Latin America, but how they of Capital and his tenacious the First. The latter needs the number of those who work hard Cuban we met owned a shipping Austro-North American critic there, pay their taxes, die in realized the effectiveness of the former and at the same time company, or a sugar plantation school and the need that people all or a chain of stores, personally. coincided. rejects it. In Europe and North their wars, but cannot vote nor over the world had for doctors and As it was explained to us, these The protagonist has changed, America appears an undesirable be elected. In today’s Rome the they expanded it to give spaces participation of the citizens is things are not a priority in Cuba, to students from any country. the subject of history, man. The protagonist, a mute guest that the priority is to make sure world population has grown in demands its rights. While here reduced while the mass of those There are currently almost 4,000 excluded is constantly growing, everyone has the basic things students at the school, from 24 an exponential manner since we carry out this important they need to live with dignity, the days of the publication collective reflection animated the modern “barbarians.” In this countries, with over 33 ethnic and to develop in good health. groups represented. of the Communist Manifesto by the example of a truly very building, recently, professor Robert Dahl--prominent We also got to see the limitations Incredibly, there are also 500 apologist for the archetypical that the 46-year-old US imposed spaces available for US students, capitalist--recognized in such blockade of Cuba has brought. but because of the travel marginalization the principal lack of contemporary liberal democracy. The end of that exclusion, the struggle for democracy, specifically including the democratization of Western societies, should be a priority for those who wish to transform the world. This is yet more urgent if we perceive the other face of the migratory phenomenon together May Day in Camaguey. with it grows, in parallel, racial May 1 2006. hatred, xenophobia, which feeds fascist tendencies today present and it continues doing so. creative and humanist thinker in an obvious manner in those Man traveled through tens of and try to find the paths toward a societies. Costing the Cuban people an thousands of years to arrive at better world, the U.S. Congress blockade and red tape the US The migratory problem reflects, estimated $82Billion over the administration puts up, there are the first billion. It took a century continues discussing what to thus, an aspect of capitalism years, the blockade continues to to triple the double of that figure. do with those who number at only 71 American students at this today that it is also worthwhile prevent Cubans from accessing time. August 1st, the first students Each 25 years is added to that least 11 million people--that is, reflecting on. While the medical supplies, technological graduated from the school. The figure a quantity similar to that the Cuban population--the so- equipment, food, and many school takes a holistic approach emigrants are humiliated and other much needed goods and which represented the whole called undocumented, searching super exploited in the countries to medicine, training doctors planet when Karl Marx was for formulas that allow them to services. Where Cuba has more on three principals- Academic where they end up, there they are doctors per capita than anywhere born. At a similar rhythm the continue to be exploited while used also as instruments for the Science, Social Commitment and natural resources of the earth access to that society is closed. in the world, hospitals and Professional Development. oppression of the local workers. clinics are still undersupplied is exhausted and animal and The migratory phenomenon will Being used as the international with medicines and equipment- After the introduction, a young vegetable species are annihilated be maintained and will gain in reserve army, stripped of rights, things as simple as disposable forever. Man is the only being size along with capitalism, with and until now not organized,
that has dedicated himself with its present characteristics, as it they serve to lower wages, are so much fury and efficiency to is expanded through the whole forced to accept conditions that, syringes and latex gloves. While black woman got up and spoke. destroy life. world. Capitalism cannot stop as Bush the lesser likes to say, school is free to everyone from She was American, from West it, just as it is neither capable of U.S. workers do not accept. kindergarten through post Philadelphia, which is one of the Irreversible climactic changes, secondary, and universally poorest neighbourhoods in all of forests transformed into deserts, abandoning those characteristics To free the immigrants from their accessible, books, computers, North America, with the highest poisoned waters, unbreathable and much less transform itself exploitation becomes, therefore, musical instruments are still rate of crime and the highest air, irremediably degraded soils, into another thing. essential for the emancipation limited. percentage of adults who are astounding conglomerations of The Central Intelligence of the workers in the developed And yet, Cuba develops its functionally illiterate. She got human beings in uninhabitable Agency of the United States countries. To forge a union richest resource, people. And up, and she had barely introduced herself when she started crying. and always growing urban clogs has prognosticated that, as a between both exploited sectors, they don’t just do it to make are distressing worries that consequence of that phenomenon, in an area that has had advances Cuba better. Cuba sends tens She talked about how she was compose a reality not known very soon deep changes will that are still insufficient but of thousands of doctors and never one of those kids who before. have been produced in the whose importance cannot be teachers and professionals all dream all their lives of becoming over the world. a doctor, because where she was Beyond ideologies the people cultures of several European underestimated, is today a task During our third day in Cuba from, it just isn’t on the list of continue discovering that which countries. The struggle for the that cannot be postponed. To possibilities, and now here she rights of immigrants and against rescue the role of the labor we visited the Latin American is obvious. In 1992, at the Earth School of Medicine (ELAM). was at medical school, with a Summit at Rio de Janeiro, discrimination expressed in union, true bulwark of civil huge world opening before her. public demonstrations that society and to guarantee the The school was out for the governments and civil society summer, but there were still The school provides all upgrading put ourselves in agreement mobilized millions of people and rights of all workers, without some students and staff around. needed, and Spanish courses in the historic May Day protest- exceptions, to organize oneself It’s this big huge complex of so any applicant who shows an that in order to save the earth aptitude and seriousness can get it was necessary “to change the -a date that never before had is an indispensable response to a white buildings on the shore. It been expressed in this way in capitalism that ever more openly used to be a navel academy, but in, regardless of their academic patterns of production and of history. She was in her third year. consumption,” words subscribed the United States--brings to the casts off its “liberal” mask and in 1998, as a part of the Battle forefront a political force that demonstrates the perverse face of Ideas, it was turned into the She talked about moving to Cuba, to by many, including Bush living there, and going back to visit now cannot be easily ignored. of tyranny. medical school. The concept senior. They were words, came out of the tragedy of the her sister last summer in Philly certainly. But they imply explicit The presence of millions of Fascism must be stopped. series of Hurricanes that year (the school pays for students to recognition although in the text people discriminated against and It is necessary to prevent it that killed over 30,000 people in return home each summer), and of a document, of the necessity of lacking civil and political rights from being able to gather its Latin America, after which Cuba the contrast between what she saw the radical transformation sent thousands of doctors and in America and what she saw in Cuba- Cuba being the 3rd world, of the relations between nurses to over 20 countries who had been stricken. America being the wealthiest men and between them country in the world. She talked and nature. Dr. Luis Silva, the director of the about how when she graduates The subject, besides, school, talked about this in his and goes back to Philly (the inevitably moves. introduction. He explained about one requirement of the school, how the Navel Academy had Population grows which covers all expenses for been up for sale as a resort, but eight years of studying, is that exponentially but it how Fidel and Raul Castro had when you graduate, you return doesn’t do so equally in intervened and said that there was to your community and practice all parts of the world. a need to set up an international there for two years) she’s not In the so-called developed school of medicine- so that Cuba just going to be a doctor and could help Latin American and countries it is frozen and provide community service with Caribbean countries, not just by it, she going back with a spirit of even tends to shrink. In sending them doctors, but also by internationalism and will also be the rest, in that part of the Havana, Cuba Hundreds of thousands of Cubans march along Havana’s seafront. training them for free and having working to advocate for the better world that was baptized as them return to their communities world Cuba is trying to build. the Third, they are more, May 14 2004.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 13 own victims into a senseless a system that, among other peace and life. To fight to create It was a very moving speech- just in Cuba, but also for every opposition. Never again should things, depends ever more on new models, to forge alliances everyone was in tears by the end single person around the world. a Nixon be able to mobilize “outsourcing” and the maquila where possible or meanwhile of it. construction workers against and that imposes everywhere promote points or moments One of the most viscous attacks Later in the summer, upon that Cuba has faced since the the youth who, in the seventies the dogma of the omnipotent of coincidence between the returning home, I would see revolution is the constant slander of the last century, rebelled market and “free trade.” diverse forces that today, for reports all over the news, about from the ruling class’s media in against the war in Vietnam. It is To forge convergence, to later the most varied motives, are a horrible hurricane that ripped the US, including the accusation possible to unite them. We saw out of step with the world as it through the gulf states of the that Cuba is a violator of human them united, is, should constitute US. I would watch news reports rights. The people of Cuba are in Seattle, the principal guide showing thousands of poor, great at exposing the US on this both opposing for revolutionaries. mostly black and latino people, accusation though- a friend I met their lives reduced to shambles, told me n e o - l i b e r a l To struggle so that globalization. virtually abandoned by the “Oh, there are human rights the antiwar and government of the United States. One must anti-globalization violations that take place in To struggle so that I would also read about Cuba’s Cuba- they just all take place help them to movements flow response to this tragedy- an offer in the US military base in converge, and the antiwar and anti- into the same great to send 1,500 fully equipped Guantanimo Bay.” (In Cuba you it is possible to stream and that all doctors to assist the people of never see a flag at full mast, propose this to those discriminated New Orleans, only for the US to there is always space at the top, globalization“ movements turn this offer down. As I would them, and it is against, all the to remember that all of Cuba is read these things through August a crucial aspect marginalized be not free because Guantanimo flow into the same great and September, I would think of the world included is the is still occupied and people are constantly of that young woman suffering there.) today and in stream and that all those main duty of from Philly, and the offer that the struggle to r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s she accepted and why. I started to see that it went change it. today. It is the way beyond that too though- that discriminated against, The impact of these visits, not “ not only was the blockade of The poor try to to create a better just to the ELAM, but also to world. It is the road Cuba a horrible violation of emigrate to the all the marginalized be the other schools, the churches, these human rights that the US rich world to to take in advancing the clinics, the farms, the toward socialism. To claim to treasure so much, but escape poverty. included is the main duty community gardens, all of it- of that the things that Cuba had The rich, achieve socialism seeing real life in Cuba, began fought for and gained in spite of to accumulate, on my fellow meanwhile, try in this century there this blockade were representing of revolutionaries today. must be “heroic caravanistas and me. Questions REAL human rights. to place their were flying around- of “why capital in the creation,” a creation that is authentic, Cuba?” How could a country, so So why Cuba? What is so poor countries threatening about this island independent, and small and under so much attack in order to do such great things? And why? of 11.5 million people, in increase their therefore diverse and Why didn’t the countries we the middle of the ocean? profits with the unique. were coming from have the same What would compel the US misery of others and inevitably Ricardo Alarcón is Vice values, the same institutions? government to attack it so worsen the conditions of work on reach unity between the President of Cuba and What did Cuba have the United fiercely? and of life for workers in the exploited people of the First President of the National States didn’t have? Canada? The answers would begin developed countries. Few in and Third World, is now not Assembly of People’s Power. My mind kept coming back to to unfold as we got ready to the United States and Europe only possible but necessary. the same thing, time after time- celebrate the 26th of July, the But it is not enough to work for He gave the above the first thing I saw in Cuba. national celebration of the would identify themselves speech at the opening of as members of a worker unity between all the proletariat “Humanity is my Homeland”. revolution, with a speech by 3rd International Marx Fidel Castro himself at the aristocracy, beneficiary of the of the world, of the First and The foundation of the Cuban Conference, On May 3, Revolution, the vision that the Karl Marx theatre. dropping of crumbs coming Third World, of the South and of the North. Antifascist unity 2006. Convention Palace, Cuban Revolution was built on- To be continued… from the colonies. Today they Havana, Cuba fighting for all human life- not are seen as those defeated by is essential for democracy,
La obra de Carlos Marx y los desafios del siglo XXI
Por Ricardo Alarcon en la nunca acabada sucesión de de su ideología toda y desde ella relecturas de su pensamiento que construir una teoría y una práctica han acompañado a quienes lo que corresponda con esa realidad y reivindican como suyo, tanto como contribuya a transformarla. EL presidente de la Asamblea a los que se empeñan inútilmente Probablemente no exista prioridad Nacional del Poder Popular de Cuba, en sepultarlo, es necesario rescatar y Vicepresidente De Cuba más alta ni urgencia mayor para los su legado fundamental, aquello que socialistas: definir una concepción III Conferencia Internacional “La le hace trascender su tiempo para estratégica y precisar las tácticas y obra de Carlos Marx y los desafíos , estar aquí y ahora, en la lucha por la los métodos de lucha adecuados para La Habana, Cuba, Mayo 3-6, 2006 emancipación humana. enfrentar al capitalismo realmente “Recordemos que decía que no Tomo como punto de partida la existente. Las herramientas teóricas bastaba que la idea clamase por advertencia, no siempre escuchada, a nuestra disposición requieren ser hacerse realidad, sino que era de Rosa Luxemburgo: “la obra capital afiladas para su empleo eficaz en esta necesario que la realidad gritase de Marx, como su ideología toda, no etapa que plantea nuevos desafíos al también por erguirse en idea” - Franz es ningún evangelio en que se nos movimiento revolucionario. Mehring brinden verdades de última instancia, Estas notas no tienen otro propósito acabadas y perennes, sino manantial No intentaré abordar aquí la amplia que contribuir a la discusión de ese inagotable de sugestiones para seguir crucial tema y carecen, obviamente, y rica producción intelectual de trabajando con la inteligencia, para Carlos Marx, su profundo análisis de cualquier pretensión de agotarlo. seguir investigando y luchando por Han sido redactadas teniendo del capitalismo o de los principales la verdad”. acontecimientos de su época ni presente lo que del gran texto tampoco lo haré acerca de su vida Asumir su obra, por encima de inconcluso afirmara también Rosa ejemplar como luchador social y cualquier otra consideración, como Luxemburgo: “Inacabados como dirigente revolucionario. Se que fuente de inspiración y guía para quedaron, estos dos tomos encierran estos temas resultan familiares a quienes como él queremos no sólo valores infinitamente más preciosos ustedes. interpretar acertadamente el mundo que cualquier verdad definitiva y sino sobre todo transformarlo perfecta: el acicate para la labor del Les propongo, si se me concede luchando hasta alcanzar el pensamiento y ese análisis crítico la licencia, separar a Marx del socialismo. y de enjuiciamiento de las propias marxismo. Con ello aludo a la ideas, que es lo que hay de más necesidad de pensar a Marx desde No se trata de encontrar en sus textos citas que parezcan útiles al análisis genuino en la teoría que nos ha Marx más que desde cualquiera de las legado Carlos Marx”. versiones del marxismo, imaginarlo de la realidad contemporánea, del a él planteándose los desafíos del capitalismo tal cual es hoy día, algo Otra observación indispensable. La Siglo XXI, apartando lo esencial de de lo que él no se ocupó ni habría necesidad de elaborar una teoría su obra, de lo que de su obra hicieron podido proponérselo. revolucionaria que sirva a la victoria Ricardo Alarcon y Fidel Castro. otros. En lugar de embarcarnos Nuestra obligación, es valernos frente a lo que se ha dado en llamar May 1 1996.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 14 la globalización neoliberal no tiene y los bolcheviques, cuya enorme socavan su sistema político. absolutamente nada que ver con una significación nadie podrá arrancar de No andan lejos sus socios en pretendida liquidación del marxismo la memoria del proletariado pero que Europa. Acostumbrados, ellos y mucho menos con la imaginaria era eso, un proyecto específico, -es también, a la disciplina bloquista desaparición de la lucha de clases decir, una obra humana, con virtudes y el “seguidismo” no alcanzan a que algunos intentaron convertir en y defectos, glorias y sombras, descubrir la profundidad de la crisis dogmas inamovibles en apresurados resultado de inmensos sacrificios de insuperable del que fue, pero ya no textos que inundaron el planeta a un pueblo concreto en circunstancias es, omnipotente jefe. comienzos de la última década del y condiciones también concretas- Siglo XX. y no la realización de una idea En América Latina y en otras partes predestinada y universal. del Tercer Mundo, entretanto, se La disolución de la URSS y afirman procesos radicales y se la bancarrota del denominado La conversión de la experiencia adelantan esquemas de concertación “socialismo real” dieron paso a una soviética en paradigma para quienes que buscan eliminar, o al menos operación triunfalista hábilmente en otros lugares libraban sus propias reducir, la dominación imperialista. desplegada por los principales luchas anticapitalistas, y la imperiosa El malestar anticapitalista, por primera vez, se manifiesta, al mismo tiempo en todas partes, en los países avanzados y en los atrasados y no se reduce sólo a los proletarios y otras capas explotadas. No sólo se expresa hoy en las luchas que pudiéramos llamar “clásicas” -entre clases y naciones explotadas y explotadoras- sino que a ellas se agregan, a veces con más aliento, las que exigen la salvación del medio ambiente, o los derechos de la mujer y de los discriminados y excluidos por cuestiones de sexo, etnia o religión. Un conjunto diverso, multicolor, Desfile por el Primero de Mayo en la Plaza Ernesto en el que no faltan contradicciones Guevara. y paradojas surge frente al sistema dominante No es aún el arco iris Desfile por el Primero de Mayo en la Plaza Ernesto que anuncia el fin de la tormenta. Lo Guevara. centros del imperialismo que, sin obligación de defenderla frente a sus caracteriza la espontaneidad, requiere embargo, apenas podía ocultar su enconados y poderosos enemigos, articulación y coherencia que deben carácter esencialmente defensivo: condujo a la subordinación de gran ser estimuladas sin sectarismo, sin ¿Cuándo puede un movimiento ser circunstancias y de la educación, con su victoria aparentemente total parte del movimiento revolucionario arrebatarle la frescura. definido como verdaderamente de y de que, por tanto, los hombres y definitiva, el capitalismo, en a la política y los intereses de la masas y cuándo adquiere la cualidad modificados son producto de realidad, entraba en una nueva fase URSS que no siempre correspondían El gran reto de los revolucionarios, de verdaderamente revolucionario? circunstancias distintas y de una que pudiera ser terminal en la que con los de otros pueblos. La guerra de los comunistas, es definir nuestro Las respuestas no se encontrarán educación modificada, olvida que sus contradicciones y limitaciones fría y la división del mundo en dos papel, el lugar que debemos ocupar en un laboratorio de investigación son los hombres, precisamente, se manifiestan con una crudeza no bloques de estados antagónicos que en esta batalla. Para ello necesitamos ni brotarán del debate académico. los que hacen que cambien las disimulada y en la que surgen nuevas, se amenazaban mutuamente con una teoría. Habrán de crearlas los propios circunstancias y que el propio insospechadas, posibilidades para la la aniquilación nuclear, redujo al En ese sentido hay que regresar revolucionarios, hombres y mujeres educador necesita ser educado. acción revolucionaria. mínimo la capacidad del pensamiento a la tan conocida como olvidada de carne y hueso, actuando desde las Conduce, pues, forzosamente, a la crítico y reforzó el dogmatismo. Esa paradoja quizás explique la definición de Lenin: “Una acertada masas, construyendo su movimiento división de la sociedad en dos partes, escasa duración de aquel triunfalismo teoría revolucionaria sólo se forma y tratando de hacerlo cada vez más una de las cuales está por encima en el plano académico. Pocos repiten de manera definitiva en estrecha revolucionario. La vida entera de la sociedad (así, por ejemplo, en En honor a la verdad hay que conexión con la experiencia práctica Roberto Owen) hoy aquella bobería acerca del rendir homenaje a los incontables del genial jefe bolchevique puede
“fin de la historia”. No lo hace ya hombres y mujeres que sacrificaron de un movimiento verdaderamente La coincidencia de la modificación siquiera Fukuyama, más preocupado sus vidas, la mayor parte en total de masas y verdaderamente resumirse en ese empeño. de las circunstancias y de la actividad en estos días en criticar el fracaso de anonimato y murieron heroicamente revolucionario”. Una persistente leyenda atribuye humana sólo puede concebirse y la política de Bush que tanto le debe, en cualquier rincón del planeta entenderse racionalmente como Esa teoría, a escala mundial, no al autor del Capital haber dicho sin embargo, a sus elucubraciones. La defendiendo al país de los soviets, existe como algo hecho, que sirva que “el hombre piensa como práctica revolucionaria”. actual crisis dentro del movimiento a su política y a su aplicación en el de guía en la lucha para sustituir vive”, lo cual repiten aun no pocos En la Segunda Declaración de La neoconservador norteamericano propio terruño por equivocada que Habana los cubanos proclamamos sugiere que no son pocos quienes se fuera en no pocos casos. Para ellos que “el deber de todo revolucionario cuestionan ahora si verdaderamente respeto y admiración. Pero de lo que es hacer la revolución”. Hacerla fueron ellos los vencedores de la se trata ahora es de reconocer las significa crear un mundo nuevo a Guerra Fría. consecuencias muy nocivas de esa partir de los obstáculos y limitaciones De nuestro lado se impone asimismo tendencia. que imponen las circunstancias, en un la reflexión autocrítica. El “seguidismo” caló hondamente Las respuestas no se encontrarán incesante batallar en el que ambos, el Debemos admitir nuestros propios en muchos, organizaciones e hombre y la realidad circundante, se errores sobre todo los que sirvieron individuos, que no pudieron en un laboratorio de investigación irán transformando recíprocamente. de abono a la manipulación burguesa reaccionar racionalmente cuando se “Una cierta forma de socialismo del derrumbe del modelo soviético. desplomó el sistema que era sustento surgirá inevitablemente de la de su fe. Habían vivido convencidos ni brotarán del“ debate académico. No es este el momento para también inevitable descomposición profundizar en el análisis del fracaso de ser parte de un conjunto del capitalismo” - Joseph A. de una experiencia que ya pertenece imbatible, dueños y administradores Habrán de crearlas los propios Schumpeter de verdades científicamente a los historiadores. Pero sí resulta La predicción que acabo de citar ha ineludible subrayar aquí algo que demostradas y marchaban en una revolucionarios, hombres y mujeres entusiasta procesión de la que, sido objeto de implacables denuestos condujo a la derrota y a su ventajosa por parte de los pensadores burgueses. utilización por el enemigo. curiosamente, no participaba el fundador, quien simplemente, con de carne y hueso, actuando“ desde En 1942 era difícil ver la caída del Ese proyecto -independientemente toda naturalidad, había aclarado “je capitalismo como algo inevitable. Su de Lenin y del espíritu creador ne suis pas marxiste”. las masas, construyendo su autor, sin embargo, no dejó de creer que animó los primeros años de la en ella hasta el último instante. Derrumbado el mito, antiguos Revolución bolchevique- redujo Ocho años después, poco antes de el marxismo a una escolástica dogmáticos fueron incapaces de movimiento y tratando de hacerlo apreciar las nuevas posibilidades morir, sostuvo: “Marx se equivocó determinista y mecanicista, en su diagnóstico sobre el modo transformó la investigación en dogma, del movimiento revolucionario, los espacios antes inexistentes que cada vez más revolucionario. en que la sociedad capitalista se el pensamiento en propaganda, derrumbaría; pero no se equivocó en hasta atraparlo en una esclerosis era necesario explorar con audacia y creatividad. Hubo quienes, en la predicción de que finalmente se sin salida. Fabricó una “ciencia” derrumbaría”. simplificadora que creyó demostrar acrobacia insuperable, se sumaron que el socialismo se realizaría a los “vencedores” convirtiendo la En 1950 el capitalismo inevitablemente, por sí mismo, traición en su nueva religión. norteamericano alcanzaba el cenit de como ineluctable consecuencia de Pero crece el número de los el actual orden y transformarlo en militantes sin advertir el error ni su hegemonía. Era la única potencia una historia predeterminada y que inconformes, de los insatisfechos, dirección al socialismo. La teoría sus efectos paralizantes. La relación nuclear, no sufrió la devastación ese socialismo seguiría su marcha, de los que se rebelan. Toda la hay que formarla y su formación entre el hombre y su entorno es de que la Guerra Mundial había también incontestable, conforme a retórica acerca de la hegemonía definitiva tiene que realizarse en importancia decisiva para la ética causado a todos los demás países leyes y reglas codificadas en extraño norteamericana se da de cachetes una interrelación constante con y la política y para comprender la desarrollados, dominaba económica ritual. El socialismo, en resumen, con su empantanamiento en Iraq, la práctica, en un proceso del que Undécima Tesis sobre Feuerbach. y políticamente a Europa Occidental era inevitable e invencible, con él se las insalvables contradicciones ambos integran un todo inseparable. Para transformar el mundo la clave y a América Latina, poseía una arribaría verdaderamente al fin de la y limitaciones de su economía, Pero no se trata de cualquier práctica está en la Tercera Tesis. Recordemos indiscutida superioridad en la ciencia historia. No cualquier socialismo sino el despertar de masas que allá sino la de un movimiento que sea, a las precisiones de Marx: y la tecnología. ese en particular, el que en admirable suponían dormidas, y la corrupción la vez, “verdaderamente de masas y “La teoría materialista de que A mediados del siglo pasado el hazaña trataron de alcanzar Lenin y el resquebrajamiento moral que verdaderamente revolucionario”. los hombres son producto de las mundo era bastante diferente al de
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 15 y hasta ahora desorganizados, ellos Pero no basta con trabajar por la hoy. Por caminos que probablemente mejor, el Congreso norteamericano los vimos, en Seattle, oponiéndose sirven para deprimir los salarios, unidad entre todos los proletarios del ellos no sospechaban estamos más sigue discutiendo que hacer con ambos a la globalización neoliberal. obligados a aceptar condiciones mundo, del Primero y el Tercero, del próximos ahora al cumplimiento de quienes calculan al menos once que, como gusta decir a Bush, el Hay que contribuir a que converjan, Sur y el Norte. Es imprescindible la la profecía en la que coincidieron, millones de personas -es decir la pequeño, no aceptan los trabajadores y es posible proponérselo, ese unión antifascista, por la democracia, paradójicamente, el autor del población cubana-, los llamados norteamericanos. es aspecto crucial del mundo por la paz y la vida. Esforzarse por Capital y su tenaz crítico austro- indocumentados, en busca de contemporáneo y del empeño por crear nuevas articulaciones, por norteamericano. fórmulas que les permitan seguir Liberar de su explotación y cambiarlo. explotándolos mientras les cierran el discriminación a los inmigrantes forjar alianzas donde sea posible o Ha cambiado el protagonista, el acceso a aquella sociedad. deviene, pues, en algo esencial para Los pobres tratan de emigrar hacia el mientras tanto promover puntos o sujeto de la historia, el hombre. La la emancipación de los trabajadores mundo rico para escapar de la pobreza. momentos de coincidencia entre las población mundial ha crecido de El fenómeno migratorio se mantendrá en los países desarrollados. Forjar Los ricos, entretanto, buscan colocar diversas fuerzas que hoy, por las manera exponencial desde los días y ganará en masividad en la misma la unión entre ambos sectores sus capitales en los países pobres a más diversas motivaciones, están de la publicación del Manifiesto medida que el capitalismo, con sus explotados, en lo que ha habido fin de incrementar sus ganancias con inconformes con el mundo tal cual Comunista y continúa haciéndolo. características actuales, se expande avances aún insuficientes pero cuya la miseria ajena e inevitablemente es, debe constituir la guía principal El hombre transitó decenas de miles por todo el mundo. El capitalismo importancia no puede ser subestimada, deprimir las condiciones de trabajo para los revolucionarios. de años para llegar al primer millar no puede detenerlo como tampoco es hoy una tarea impostergable. y de vida de los trabajadores en los Empeñarse por que fluyan en un de millones. Le bastó un siglo para está en condiciones de abandonar Rescatar el papel del sindicato, países centrales. mismo torrente el movimiento triplicar el doble de esa cifra. Cada esas características y mucho menos verdadero sustento de la sociedad contra la guerra y el que se 25 años aproximadamente se suman de transformarse a sí mismo en otra Pocos en Norteamérica y Europa se civil y garantizar el derecho de todos enfrenta a la globalización y que a ella una cantidad semejante a la cosa. identificarían como integrantes de los trabajadores, sin excepciones, a su caudal se incorporen todos que totalizaba el planeta cuando una aristocracia obrera, beneficiaria La Agencia Central de Inteligencia a sindicalizarse es indispensable los discriminados, todos los nació Karl Marx. del reparto de migajas provenientes de Estados Unidos ha pronosticado respuesta a un capitalismo que cada de las colonias. Hoy se reconocen marginados, es el deber principal, A ritmo semejante se agotan los que, como consecuencia de vez más abiertamente se despoja de más bien como los derrotados hoy día, de los revolucionarios. Es recursos naturales de la Tierra y se ese fenómeno, muy pronto se su máscara “liberal” y muestra el de un sistema que, entre otras la vía para conquistar un mundo aniquilan, para siempre, especies habrán producido modificaciones rostro perverso de la tiranía. cosas, depende cada vez más del mejor. Es el camino para avanzar animales y vegetales. El hombre es profundas en las culturas de varios Hay que cerrarle el paso al fascismo. “outsourcing” y la maquila y que hacia el socialismo. Para alcanzar el el único ser que se ha dedicado con países de Europa. La lucha por Es preciso impedir que consiga impone por todas partes el dogma socialismo en este Siglo que habrá tanta saña y eficacia a destruir la los derechos de los inmigrantes y enfrentar en una oposición insensata del mercado omnipotente y el “libre de ser necesariamente “creación vida. contra la discriminación expresada a sus víctimas. Que nunca más pueda comercio”. heroica” y como tal auténtica, en manifestaciones públicas que independiente y por ello, diversa, Cambios climáticos irreversibles, un Nixon movilizar a los obreros de Construir la convergencia, para movilizaron a millones de personas irrepetible. bosques transformados en y en la histórica protesta del Primero la construcción contra los jóvenes alcanzar más tarde la unión, entre los desiertos, aguas envenenadas, de Mayo -fecha que nunca antes se que, en los años setenta del pasado explotados del Primero y del Tercer atmósferas irrespirables, suelos había celebrado así en Norteamérica- siglo, se rebelaban contra la guerra de Mundo, es ahora no sólo posible sino irremediablemente degradados, sitúa en primer plano una fuerza Viet Nam. Unirlos es posible. Unidos necesario.
inauditas aglomeraciones de política que ya no podrá ser ignorada seres humanos en urbanizaciones fácilmente. inhabitables y siempre multiplicadas, La presencia de millones de personas son preocupaciones angustiosas SAN SALVADOR ATENCO: discriminadas y carentes de derechos que integran una realidad antes no civiles y políticos, plantea un conocida. cuestionamiento esencial que va a las Más allá de las ideologías la gente raíces mismas del sistema político que OPEN VEIN OF MEXICO va descubriendo lo que es obvio. Occidente ha pretendido convertir en En 1992, en la Cumbre de la Tierra modelo obligatorio para todos. Cada en Río de Janeiro, los gobiernos y vez más se incrementa el número By Tamara Hansen la sociedad civil nos pusimos de de los que allá trabajan duramente, “I don’t even call it violence acuerdo en que para salvar el mundo pagan sus impuestos, mueren en sus when it’s in self defence; I call era necesario “cambiar los patrones guerras, pero no pueden votar ni ser it intelligence” - Malcolm X de producción y consumo”, palabras elegidos. En la Roma actual se reduce suscritas por muchos, incluido Bush la participación de los ciudadanos On May 3rd 2006 Mexican police padre. Fueron palabras, ciertamente. mientras aumenta constantemente la harassed and arrested flower Pero implican el reconocimiento masa de los excluidos, los “bárbaros” vendors in Texcoco, a town just explícito, aunque sea en el texto modernos. En este mismo edificio, north of Mexico City, who were de un documento, de la necesidad recientemente, el profesor Robert ‘suspected of illegally selling de transformación radical de las Dahl -destacado apologista del flowers’. The vendors appealed relaciones entre los hombres y entre arquetipo capitalista- reconoció to local people in Atenco for ellos y la naturaleza. en tal marginación la carencia support, which resulted in a blockade being erected blocking El sujeto, además, inevitablemente principal de la democracia liberal the highway in solidarity with se mueve. La población aumenta contemporánea. the flower vendors. exponencialmente pero no lo hace El fin de esa exclusión, la lucha Demonstration against police repression in Atenco. por igual en todo el mundo. por la democracia, incluyendo This is when the Mexican May 12 2006. Police began cracking skulls. En los llamados países desarrollados específicamente la democratización Just under 100 people were se estanca y en algunos incluso tiende de las sociedades occidentales, debe arrested-many carried away a decrecer. En el resto, en aquella ser una prioridad para todos los que happened was clear: tear gas the people of Atenco saying, dripping in blood; 11 police parte del mundo que fue bautizada quieren transformar el mundo. Ella was used to evacuate the streets “The regrettable, violent acts officers were taken hostage como el Tercero, son más, cada vez es aún más urgente si nos percatamos as the police began door-to-door perpetrated by a small group by the local people; and one muchos más, sus pobladores -a pesar de la otra cara del fenómeno searches; around 200 people yesterday in the State of Mexico 14-year-old boy was shot and de la muerte temprana, la miseria, el migratorio: junto a él crece también, were arrested; many people were are an outrage against society killed by police. hambre- y también los que en espiral paralelamente, el odio racista, la brutally beaten; and over two and an attack on the rule of law... indetenible, se desplazan hacia los xenofobia, que nutre las tendencias The next day – May 4th the dozen women charge that during No cause justifies breaking the enclaves de opulencia. fascistizantes, presentes hoy de police came back for revenge. their arrest their were fondled or law.” manera evidente en esas sociedades. Six officers who had been held raped by police. El Tercer Mundo penetra en el A Chilean student and filmmaker hostage had been release at Primero. Este último lo necesita El problema migratorio refleja, The Mexican Government attending school in Mexico around midnight, but still the y a la vez lo rechaza. En Europa y asimismo, un aspecto del capitalismo Responds named Valentina Palma Novoa actual sobre el que también conviene government of Mexico sent Norteamérica aparece un protagonista All of these acts of terror happened learned much about this “rule reflexionar. Mientras los emigrantes over 1,000 police into a town th indeseado, un convidado de piedra if not under the government’s of law” in Atenco, on May 4 . son humillados y sobreexplotados of around 10,000 people and que exige sus derechos. orders, at least under their watch, Below is a small section of her en los países donde van a parar, unleashed a flurry of violence so you think the government eyewitness account: Mientras acá llevamos a cabo esta ahí son utilizados también como and repression. importante reflexión colectiva would at least feign concern for “Cautiously, I got up to look instrumentos para la opresión de los The pretext for this repression animados por el ejemplo de un the people brutalized in Atenco? at the street and I saw five trabajadores locales. Empleándolos was to find the police officers pensador verdaderamente creador y Instead Mexican president Vicente police officers, devoid of any como el ejército internacional de that had been taken. However humanista y tratamos de encontrar Fox attempted to criminalize compassion, kicking and using reserva, desprovistos de derechos, by the end of the day what los senderos hacia un mundo their clubs to beat an old man
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 16 who lay strewn on the ground. I be avoided.” of those polled said they feared is payback from the government for Respond! became more afraid... while the To read Valentina’s full account the government was on the brink opposing the airport. Jose Gomez Since the repression in Atenco took sound of shots became part of visit: http://www.narconews.com/ of loosing control. a business owner in Atenco said, place thousands have participated the town’s landscape of sound. Issue41/article1802.html According to Elliott Young the “They came to collect the bill... in marches both inside and outside A man’s voice yelled violently, When we rejected the airport, this of Mexico demanding the release of How will all of this affect the director of Latin American Studies “Come down here, you bastards town was erased from the map. the political prisoners held unjustly upcoming election in Mexico? at Lewis & Clark College in on the roof.” First, the two young Oregon, “The government is using We’ve received no resources.” by the Mexican government. As men went down. I watched them The brutality that took place the fear of a guerrilla movement Promises of Prosperity: many as three dozen prisoners are being beaten from above... then in Atenco was shown all over like the Zapatistas to benefit the Realities of Poverty also reported to be on hunger strike a police officer yelled up to me, Mexico, showing police being protesting the poor conditions they governing party. They’re using it Recently President Fox explained, “Come down here, bitch. Come captured and beaten by people face in jail and the cruelty they faced to say Mexico is on the brink of “Five and a half years into down here now.” in Atenco and police beating chaos and needs the strong hand during their arrest. unarmed protesters and non- my mandate, Mexico has been I came down from the roof slowly, of the state.” consolidated as one of the world’s On Saturday May 13th 2,500 people terrorized by the sight of the At this point it seems unclear if top ten economies, with the lowest took to the streets in Mexico demanding boys being beaten in the head. this suspected tactic will indeed inflation rates in history and twice the release of these prisoners. On Two police officers took hold of impact the election coming up the per capita income, in addition Friday May 19th and Friday May 28th me and pulled me forward while in early July. However, a recent to the fact that economic variables international days of action have been others beat me on the chest, back poll published in El Universal are better than they are in the called to continue with this demand and legs with their clubs. My cries taken between May 5th and 8th United States.” and to expose the brutality of the of pain increased when I heard Government of Mexico. In Meixco, presidential candidate Felipe Today Mexico boasts an unemployment the voice of someone asking my here in Vancouver and around the Calderon (who is running for the rate of only 3.9% (which is even name for the list of arrested. I world we must raise our voices and same party as current president lower than the United States at 5.1%!) responded, “Valentina…Valentina continue on with the demand until the Fox) was ahead of the more But what do all of these promises of Palma Novoa,” while a police progressive candidate, Lopez prisoners are released: officer ordered me to shut my prosperity mean when the most recent Obrador, by four points. This is the statistics from the World Bank show Police out of Atenco Now! mouth and another hit me in the first time he has out shot Obrador chest. that over half of Mexico’s population Release all Prisoners from Atenco since polls began in the fall. lives in poverty, with one-fifth living Now! A man’s voice ordered the officers Frustrations Brewing in extreme poverty. Free all political prisoners in Mexico to cover me with shields so people Now! could not see how badly they had This is not the first time the people Working and Poor People beaten me... They pulled me up of Atenco have come together by my hair and said, “Get in the to defend their rights. Nor is it truck, bitch.” I could barely move the first time the government of but they demanded that we move Mexico has met their struggle protesters both during and after with violence. incredibly quickly. They tossed their arrests. In many cases trying me on top of other wounded and to paint the protesters as criminals In 2002, a group based in Atenco bleeding bodies and ordered me to or people who deserved to be called the Community Front in lay my head in a pool of blood... beaten. After newspapers and Defence of the Land stopped the Along the way, I was groped by media first tried to claim that 14- Fox government from building an the hands many police officers. I year-old Javier Cortes Santiago airport on the land they use for just closed my eyes and clenched was killed by a firecracker, it farming. After facing attacks from my teeth, hoping that the worst became clear through autopsy the police the group successfully would not happen.” reports that police had in fact shot pushed back the government, Things did not get any better when him in the chest. winning a great victory. It was this same community that came the nation’s top police official, the All of this is also a part of the Public Security Secretary Eduardo nd together to defend the flower lead up to the July 2 presidential vendors of Texcoco. Medina pardoned the actions of elections in Mexico. On Friday the police saying, “Obviously, May 12th the Excelsior newspaper Some independent news media when force is used in the heat published a poll conducted is reporting how many people in of these circumstances, there are throughout Mexico in which 50% Atenco feel the current repression sometimes excesses that cannot
SAN SALVADOR ATENCO: VENA ABIERTA DE MÉXICO
como los golpeaban... un policía me esclarificó que lo que realmente causó Por Tamara Hansen grito “Bájate de ahí, perra. Bájate la muerte de Javier fue un disparo en el Ahora“ pecho de parte de la policía. Traducion y Edition Lentamente bajé de la azotea, Todo esto es, en parte, a las futuras Por Eloy Marina aterrorizada por el panoráma de elecciónes presidenciales que se los chicos que fureon golpeados en llevarán a cabo el próximo 2 de Julio en la cabeza. Dos de los oficiales me México, el periódico Excelsior publicó, “No lo llamaria violencia cuando es en aprehendieron y llevaron al frente, el día 12 de mayo, una encuesta llevada defensa propia; Lo llamo inteligencia” mientras otros me golpeaban en a cabo a lo largo y ancho del país, en - Malcolm X el pecho, espalda y piernas con la cual 50% de los entrevistados temían El 3 de Mayo del 2006 la policía sus macanas. Mis gritos de dolor que el gobierno estuviera a punto de Mexicana atacó y arrestó a los aumentaron cuando escuche que perder el control. alguién me preguntaba mi nombre, esto vendedores de flores en Texcoco, una Elliot Young, director de Estudios para la lista de detenidos. “Valentina... ciudad situada al norte de la ciudad de Latino-Americanos en el Colegio Valentina Palma Novoa” respondí, México, de quienes sospechaban de Lewis & Clark en Oregon, EE.UU. mientras otro oficial me ordenó que me ‘vender flores ilegalmente’. los cuales declaró, “El gobierno, en Mexico, esta callara y otro me golpeaba nuevamente llamaron a los residentes de Atenco usando el miedo hacia un movimiento en el pecho. en busca de ayuda, lo cual resultó en Guerrillero, como el de los Zapatistas el bloqueo de la autopista México Una voz masculina ordenó a los policías en Chiapas, para beneficiar al partido – Texcoco en solidaridad con los que me escondieran tras sus escudos, gobernante, Partido Acción Nacional vendedores de flores. esto para que la gente no viera en que (P.A.N.). Usando dicho miedo como Aquí es cuando la Policía Mexicana tan mal condición estaba debido a la excusa para demostrar que lo que el empezó a romper cabezas. Alrededor de golpiza... Me jalaron del cabello y me pueblo Mexicano necesita es un partido 100 personas fueron arrestadas, muchas ordenaron ”súbete al camión, perra”. de mano dura en el poder. Apenas me podía mover, aún así me de ellos golpeadas y aún sangrando; 11 A estas alturas no queda claro si apresuraron a subir. Me arrojaron oficiales fueron tomados presos por los esta “táctica” realmente afectará el encima de otros cuerpos heridos y residentes de Atenco; y un joven de 14 resultado de las próximas elecciones sangrantes, y ordenaron que pusiera años fue asesinado por la policía. de Julio. Sin embargo, una reciente mi cara en un charco de sangre.. A lo encuesta publicada en el periódico El Al siguiente día - 4 de Mayo la policía largo del camino fui manoseada por Universal, realizada entre el 5 y 8 de regresó en busca de venganza. Al varios oficiales. Yo solo cerre los ojos Mayo, demuestra que Felipe Calderón punto de la medianoche liberaron a y aprete los dientes, esperando que no (candidato del mismo partido que el seis oficiales tomados como rehénes, pasara lo peor”. aún así, el gobierno Mexicano mandó actual presidente Fox) se encontraba más de 1,000 cuerpos policiacos a La situación no mejoró cuando Eduardo a la cabeza de la carrera presidencial; dicha ciudad, cuya poblacion es de Medina, Secretario de Seguridad arriba de López Obrador , candidato 10,000 habitantes aproximadamente, Pública, excuso los actos de violencia progresista del P.R.D., por tan solo desencadenando una ola de violencia y cometidos por los policías diciendo, cuatro puntos. Siendo esta la primera represión. “Es obvio que cuando la fuerza es vez en la que se adelanta a Obrador usada en este tipo de circunstancias, desde que empezaron las encuestas el La razón de dicha represión era la algunas veces hay excesos que no pasado Otoño. búsqueda de los oficiales captivos. Sin pueden ser evadidos.”
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 17 embargo, al final del día lo acontecido económicas son mejores que en los era obvio: gas lacrimógeno fue usado Estados Unidos.” para evacuar las calles mientras la Hoy día, México se jacta de que el policia hacía una redada de casa en casa; índice de desempleo es del 3.9% mas de 200 personas fueron detenidas; (comparado con el 5.1% en Estados muchos fueron brutalmente golpeados; Unidos). Pero, ¿qué es lo que estas y mas de dos docenas de mujeres promesas de prosperidad realmente denunciaron abusos y violaciones de representan? Cuando las mas recientes parte de la policía. estadísticas del Banco Mundial El Gobierno Mexicano Responde demuestran que más de la mitad de la población Mexicana vive en pobreza, Todos estos actos terroristas fueron con un quinto viviendo en condiciones llevados acabo por ordenes o al de extrema pobreza. menos bajo supervisión del gobierno Mexicano. La Comunidad Pobre y Obrera Responde ¿Usted cree que el gobierno se preocupa, o al menos pretende preocuparse, por el Desde que la represión en Atenco brutalizado pueblo de Atenco? tomo lugar, miles de personas han participado en marchas tanto dentro Al contrario, sobre todo cuando como fuera de México, exigiendo la el Presidente Vicente Fox intenta liberación de los prisioneros políticos criminalizar al pueblo de Atenco encarcelados injustamente por el declarando lo siguiente: “ Los Gobierno de México. Se ha reportado rechazables actos violentos perpetrados que, aproximadamente tres docenas de ayer por un pequeño grupo en el Estado prisioneros estan en huelga de hambre, de México son una atrocidad en contra esto en protesta a las malas condiciones de la sociedad y un ataque en contra de que enfrentan en las cárceles y la la norma de ley... La violencia no tiene crueldad que recibieron durante sus cabida ni se justifica en una sociedad arrestos. democrática.” Para leer el testimonio completo de Aumenta la Frustración están sufriendo es, en gran parte, una En México, el pasado Sábado 13 de Valentina Palma Novoa, estudiante Valentina visite: http://www.narconews. venganza del gobierno hacia la oposición Esta no es la primera ocasión en la que Mayo, más de 2,500 personas salieron y cineasta chilena que asiste a una com/issue41/article1802.html al proyecto del nuevo aeropuerto, los pobladores de Atenco se unen para a la calle exigiendo la liberación de escuela en Mexico, el pasado 4 de reportan medios de comunicación ¿Como afecta esto las próximas defender sus derechos. Ni tampoco la estos prisioneros. Este viernes 19 y el Mayo, en Atenco, vivió de primera independientes. Jose Gómez, dueño de elecciones? primera en la que el gobierno Mexicano viernes 28 del presente més, se han mano lo que dicha “norma de ley” un negocio en Atenco declaró, “solo enfrenta esta lucha con violencia. convocado los Días Internacionales de realmente significa. Abajo hay una La brutalidad que tomo lugar en vinieron a saldar cuentas.. cuando Acción, para continuar con la demanda pequeña reseña de su testimonio: Atenco fue difundida por todo México, En el 2002, el Frente Comunitario rechazamos el proyecto de aeropuerto, mostrando agresiones hacia los policías en Defensa de la Tierra, grupo con este poblado fue borrado del mapa, no y exposición de la brutalidad del “Me puse en pie y cautelosamente por los pobladores de Atenco, como base en Atenco, detuvo la propuesta hemos recibido nada de recursos.” Gobierno Mexicano. mire hacia la calle y observe a cinco a su vez, a la policía atacando tanto a del gobierno de Fox de construir un En México, aquí en Vancouver y policías que, sin compasión, pateaban Promesas de Prosperidad: protestantes como a no protestantes aeropuerto en tierra usada para la alrededor del mundo debemos levantar y golpeaban con sus macanas a un Realidades de Pobreza desarmados, durante y depués de los agricultura. Después de enfrentar nuestras voces y continuar con las hombre de la tercera edad que yacía en arrestos. En la mayoria de los casos numerosos ataques de la policía, dicho El presidente Fox explicó demandas hasta que los prisioneros el suelo. Me abatió el miedo... mientras mostrando a los protestantes como grupo logró sacar al gobierno de sus recientemente, “Durante los cinco años sean liberados. tanto el sonido de disparos se fundía criminales o gente que merecía dicho tierras, ganando así una gran victoria y medio de mi mandato, México se ha con el ruido habitual del poblado. trato. Los medios de comunicaión para dicha causa. Fue este mismo consolidado como una de las mejores ¡POLICÍA FUERA DE ATENCO, YA! Un hombre violentamente grito, “Los intentaron disfrazar la muerte de grupo el que acudió en apoyo de los diez economías del mundo, con los ¡LIBERTAD PARA LOS PRESOS DE bastardos que estan en la azotea, Javier Cortés Santiago, Joven de 14 vendedores de flores de Texcoco. índices the inflación más bajos en la ATENCO, YA! vengan para aca”. Los dos jóvenes años asesinado el 3 de Mayo, como un historia y el doble de ingreso per capita, ¡LIBERTAD PARA TODOS LOS que estaban en dicha azotea bajaron, y accidente con un cohete, la autopsia Muchos de los pobladores de Atenco además del hecho de que las variables PRISIONEROS POLITICOS EN desde donde me encontraba presencié sienten que la actual represión que MÉXICO, YA!
CALL TO ACTION IN VANCOUVER: ACTIVISTS CONDEMN MEXICAN POLICE BRUTALITY AND REPRESSION IN ATENCO
By Tamara Hansen Youth 3rd World Alliance, came together to message demanding justice for those held in form ‘The Other Campaign Vancouver & San Salvador Atenco. The Other Campaign Vancouver & Organizations in Solidarity with Atenco.’ Later that week organizers set up a table Organizations in Solidarity with Atenco came Due to a lack of complete information other at the Vancouver Art Gallery to collect together after the news of the brutal repression groups and organizations who supported and signatures for a petition demanding freedom in Atenco reached the ears of organizers in participated in the actions, will be added in the for the prisoners. While Vancouver (see article in this issue distributing more than of FTT- “San Salvador Atenco: 250 flyers in two hours, the Open Vein of Mexico”). group had a chance to talk A picket action was called for to people about what was Thursday May th4 by a number happening in Atenco. The of groups. Over 25 people came solidarity and sympathy out to the initial action outside from people in Vancouver the Mexican Consulate chanting, for the heroic struggle “Release Atenco Prisoners of people in Atenco and NOW!” and “Police Out of condemnation of Mexican Atenco NOW!” the group police repression was delivered a letter to the consulate indeed tremendous and promising to continue to come very encouraging. back and picket the consulate The group organized a until the prisoners are released. third picket on Monday th After the action, organizers May 15 and another with La Surda Latin American letter was delivered to the Collective, CIPO “RFM”- consulate. At the third Vancouver, BC. Vancouver, Friends and Family Vancouver, BC. picket it was announced May 8 2006. May 8 2006. of Mexican Political Prisoners, that the Other Campaign, Vancouver Communities in a group in Mexico, was gather at the Mexican Consulate at 11:00am Solidarity with Cuba, Justicia for Migrant next update. calling for an international Day of Action for and later will march to the Art Gallery to Friday May 19th. Workers, Mobilization Against War and Less than a week later, on Monday May 8th, a distribute information. Occupation, The Social Justice Committee second picket outside the Mexican Consulate ‘The Other Campaign Vancouver & For more information or to get involved please of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, was organized as the group’s first official Organizations in Solidarity with Atenco’ contact: [email protected] Ecumenical Taskforce for Justice in the action. With over 60 people in attendance decided to take up the call to action that will Americas, the Fire This Time Newspaper, mobilize different cities around the world, Release all Prisoners from Atenco NOW the group decided to march to the Vancouver All Police Forces out of Atenco NOW Bus Rider Union, No One is Illegal, and including in Vancouver where people will Art Gallery and take the streets with their Free all Political Prisoners in Mexico NOW
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 18 Canadian Healthcare in Crisis: A Fresh Diagnosis for a Sick System
here at CHUS where you can By Thomas Davies T h e and large, P3 hospitals involve needed to be increased federal have forty patients sharing one or contracting a private firm to undertake Canadian healthcare system is two beds…” funds in the system, especially in the The healthcare system in Canada is failing miserably to meet basic the creation and operation of a areas of advanced diagnostics, home sick, so sick that some now suggest services. Canada lags behind even Injecting the Disease hospital, usually based on contracts of care (later deleted), lowering drug complete amputations of what have between 30 to 60 years. The services the U.S with only 2.1 physicians per The current crisis in healthcare is no costs, rural remote care, and primary been its defining aspects for the not directly involving medical staff accident – it was completely health care. past forty years –public are “bundled” into a single contract, fabricated through a systematic services. Through an attack which guarantees profit margins on The first ministers of Canada gathered ripping-apart of basic services on spending and services everything from cleaning to record in Ottawa in 2003 for a meeting through the 1990s. Between especially over the past keeping. Terminating any individual billed as “the most important session 1992 and 1998, hospital 15 years, the Federal and contract is virtually impossible, and on health care since Canada adopted beds decreased by 30%, and Provincial governments would mean terminating the whole Medicare”. In the end, the provincial $20 billion was lost from and their business allies with potential costs of hundreds of ministers reluctantly agreed to about the healthcare system in have created a complete millions of dollars. $32 billion dollars in spending, 1995, when the Liberal Party crisis situation, into mostly from funds that had already announced the Canadian Is there any past precedent of this which they now shove a been promised. The territorial leaders Health and Social Transfer. type of arrangement working? No. sketchy prescription of refused to sign the agreement, as This move chopped vital In England, after 15 years of “Private more “dynamic” private the North was to receive the same federal healthcare transfers to Finance Initiatives”, (the British systems. We need only to percentage of transfer payments provinces, and resulted in cuts equivalent of P3’s) the Labour look to recent examples to education spaces for nurses, government has announced both inside and outside of inadequate construction of it may have to raise taxes to Canada to realize that their long-term beds, and the now compensate for the increased proposals represent a literal longer waits for surgery and service costs. The National dead-end for health access other procedures. Health Service was forced to and care for the majority invest $77 million in a crash By 2000, a Gallup poll of people living in Canada, program of hospital cleaning found that 78% of Canadians and should be completely after an audit revealed that perceived the healthcare opposed. most of the hospitals relying system to be in crisis. Calls A History of Polarization on private contracts failed for solutions rang through the Hospital Employee’s Union to meet cleaning standards. A national healthcare ever-crowded halls and waiting members on strike. Staffing and minimum Hospital Employee’s Union strike. program has always been rooms of Canadian hospitals. April 25 2004. qualification levels have been April 2004. under attack by the same In the crisis, the same business
forces that tear at it today. When 1,000 population, and will soon face interests arose with new energy, slashed to cut costs. The British as the provinces despite the much Tommy Douglas ran for premier of a nursing shortage of unprecedented calling for new “improvements” to Medical Journal reports that, on higher cost of delivering services in Saskatchewan for the Cooperative proportions. According to a report healthcare through privatization. average, 26% of hospital beds have Canada’s most remote regions. Commonwealth Federation Party released by the Canadian Nurses The Worst Possible Medicine been cut and staff reduced by 30% The Liberal Party then won the 2004 (CCF) on a platform of nine points, Association, Canada will lose 50,000 (14% of doctors, 11% of nurses and The Canadian healthcare system Federal election on a promise to “Fix which included “State covered registered nurses to retirement over 38% of support staff.) Healthcare for a Generation.” Soon medical, hospital, and dental the next decade - almost 20% of the has never been entirely public, with essentials such as pharmaceuticals, Access is now also so unequal that after their election, they announced a services,” major companies such current workforce - and will lose an a boy born in Manchester has a life new Health Accord, promising some as Imperial Oil and Noranda Mines additional 53,000 between 2011 and dental, and optometrist services not being covered within the health expectancy of 10 years less than that $41 billion new dollars over 10 years created a committee to campaign 2016. of a boy born in Dorcet. However, to provide higher quality healthcare against him. A large department care plan. However, with the crisis Waitlists for even basic procedures of healthcare planted firmly in the profit margins for the new private for “everyone”. store chain even offered its catalogue have increased across the board, and owners range from 15 - 25%. mailing system to distribute anti- minds of people living in Canada, the Community organizations were hospital beds are increasingly scarce. corporations and government have Australia offers an important example quick to criticize the move as CCF materials. Major newspaper In August of last year, the Canadian headlines in Saskatchewan warned moved forward with the increased of the horrific consequences of public disingenuous and another maneuver Medical Association Journal privatization of services. private partnerships in healthcare. towards privatization. According to against the “communist” CCF published a report by Dr. Jacques destroying the province, and Several privately run hospitals have In 1995, the government of the the Ontario Health Coalition, “the Pepin, an infectious disease specialist Australian state of New South Wales bottom line is that this accord will mortgage companies phoned debt- at Sherbrooke University Hospital opened in the country. New private ridden farmers, threatening to clinics have also opened, offering hired a private company - Healthcare not protect the future of Medicare (CHUS) in Quebec, outlining the of Australia - to build and operate the in Canada. It is very weak on foreclose their farms if the CCF deterioration of sanitation and CT scans and MRI services. As well, won. many provinces are pushing forward Port Macquarie Base Hospital. The accountability, standards and hospital conditions as a result of 20-year contract stipulated that 80% targeting. It does nothing to prevent Nevertheless, on June 15, 1944, government cut-backs. Dr. Pepin with “public private partnerships” (P3’s) in the healthcare sector. By of the hospital’s patients must be for-profit corporations from taking Douglas solidly became the first reported, “There are departments public. Now, a report released by the over the health system…there is no CCF Premier of Saskatchewan. state’s auditor general shows that the enforcement of funding priorities With the huge push of working and state government could have saved and outcomes.” poor people around the province, $69.7 million by building the hospital A Canadian Union of Public government-funded healthcare in itself, and that the hospital now costs Saskatchewan became a reality Employees (CUPE) study $4.5 million more to run each year found more than 106 new major in 1962. Spurred by this victory, than if it were publicly operated. people in other provinces pushed privatization initiatives announced Doctors have also threatened to since the 2003 Health Accord, and for the same gains. In 1966, federal abandon Port Macquarie, one of legislation was introduced under summarized that “[f]ederal money the state’s largest regional hospitals, has gone to provinces without strings Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to because of budget problems which cover wider medical care (Medicare) tied to non-profit and public delivery. staff said were putting the lives of For-profit health care companies, and services, including doctors’ services, patients in jeopardy. throughout the country. By 1972, those who can afford to pay, have every province had implemented a benefited, while average working health insurance program that fully Placebo as Policy Canadians have seen less health care paid for insured services. and more privatization.” In 2002, former Saskatchewan Misdiagnosis premier Roy Romanow released “Paying with Your Money and Your Life.” Between 1972 and now, Canada has a highly anticipated report on the developed an international reputation solutions for healthcare in Canada. A groundbreaking assault on public as a “beacon of healthcare”. The Romanow stated the obvious: that healthcare came through a June 9th reality today, though, as any average public healthcare in Canada should Supreme Court ruling that struck person living in Canada will tell you, not be eroded further, needed to down a Quebec law prohibiting has become dangerously different. be more responsive, and that there private health insurance to cover
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 19 procedures already offered by the number of times a year, according to public system. The court found in 4 what group they’re in. Cuba is also to 3 ruling that: “The prohibition on able to develop cheap vaccines like private (health insurance) jeopardizes the meningitis B vaccine, which the right to life, liberty, and security now forms part of its free universal of the person of Canadians in an childcare program, and is distributed arbitrary manner, and is therefore not to other third world countries. in accordance with the principles of It’s “Us” and “Them” in fundamental justice” Healthcare As Well Arguing that waitlists had grown to In British Columbia, the front pages unreasonable and dangerous lengths, have exploded with headlines of the legal arm of the Canadian ER doctors warning of the current government laid a few of its cards catastrophe in the province after a on the table, with an obvious move no-holds barred attack on healthcare towards increasing privatization, instituted by the B.C. Liberal apparently justified by the obvious government, who have closed one crisis in public healthcare. in five hospital beds around the Never mind that an already province. available report by the Provincial Recently, ER doctors from Vancouver Auditor of Ontario had found that General, Royal Columbia, and Lions’ the privatization of a cancer clinic Gate Hospitals have spearheaded had not shortened waitlists, and public outcry on the appalling state of that individual treatment costs rose healthcare. Dr. Bruce Campana, who to significantly more than a public was among a majority of ER doctors alternative – from $3,000 to $3,500. at VGH who signed an open letter to Never mind as well that a McMaster the public expressing non-confidence University study published in the in his ER, summarized the current Canadian Medical Association situation, “Let me be clear on this; Journal revealed that, “Canadian people are suffering and dying in governments would pay an extra the emergency departments because $7.2 billion in annual health care of overcrowding and an insufficient costs if Canada switched to investor- 25% is spent on administrative Despite a U.S blockade, Cuba has to pharmaceuticals. number of doctors and nurses.” owned private for-profit hospitals.” costs. the highest life expectancy in Latin According to Dr. Donald American, the lowest infant mortality And what does the Liberal According to Dr. P.J. Devereaux, the There are also frighteningly real Lawrenchuck, medical director for government propose? Surprise, they lead author of the study, “with for- concerns of the kind of compromised rate (at 6.22, lower than the U.S), and the Wayne County, Michigan Health has 5.9 doctors for every 1000 people, plan to cut the number of ER doctors profit care, you end up paying with and dangerous medical treatment Department, “currently less than 1% at the busy Mount Saint Joseph your money, and your life.” This is given by profit driven corporations. compared with 5.5 in the U.S, 1.7 in of all the health care dollars in the the U.K, and 2 in Canada. Cuba has a Hospital in Vancouver by 23% later based on a previous study by the For example, in 1997, Tenet U.S are spent on prevention, even this month, and push forward with a group, which showed that the switch Healthcare Corp. agreed to pay $100 similar life expectancy with all three though 50 prevent of all diseases are of these countries (between 76.5 and P3 hospital in Abbotsford. Luckily to for-profit hospitals would result million to settle claims that patients preventable. Every dollar we send for BC taxpayers, before the 35- in an additional 2,200 unnecessary were kept in psychiatric hospitals 79 year) yet spends $185 per person immunizing someone saves 10 to 12 on healthcare a year, compared year contract was even signed, the deaths every year. simply to maximize insurance dollars.” In Canada, less than 6% of payments to lawyers and consultants payments. with $4,500 for the U.S, $2,500 for health expenditures in 2005 went to The Supreme Court also failed to Canada, and $2,250 for Britain. were only $24 million, and the total address the fact that the majority Treatment Which Makes Sense preventative care. cost rose only slightly, from $210 of people living in Canada cannot Cuba places such an emphasis on to $355 million. The increase in the The best place to look for quality Why would the United States and afford a good quality private health health care that it even currently Canadian governments and their yearly operating contract? From $20 insurance policy - which for a family healthcare solutions isn’t actually far has 22,474 health specialists in 67 million to $41 million… from the United States. The island business allies increase preventative of four in the United States is $10,800 countries in the third world, and in care? Pharmaceutical companies
U.S a year. of Cuba has been setting positive 1998 established the Latin American certainly couldn’t have made the Nationally, any doubts of the The Supreme Court has suspended medical precedents for over forty School of Medicine, where over same massive profits had sickness Canadian right wing’s concerted its ruling for 12 months, while in the years, through the recognition of 10,500 young people from 27 and diseased been curbed beforehand campaign against public healthcare healthcare as a fundamental human countries study medicine free of through recognition and treatment of should be firmly laid to rest as of the meantime the Canadian government rd and big business continue to push right. charge. symptoms, and the $30 billion spent, January 23 election of the Federal forward with the giant Trojan An American Association for World Let us remind ourselves that Cuba is according to the Canadian Institute Conservatives. The Conservatives Horse they’ve named “innovative Health study concluded in 1998 a third world country under a tight for Health Information, on private are clear that they are willing to healthcare” to further their completely that years of U.S. sanctions had economic blockade by the United care in Canada in 2004 alone would “look at other options” (remember, profit driven privatization initiatives. “dramatically harmed the health States. How is it able to accomplish have been much smaller. “innovative”) other than public and nutrition of large number of such medical feats, and what could healthcare. Meanwhile, they also No Cure Here shrug publicly and lick their lips ordinary Cuban citizens,” but that, be applied to the healthcare system With an emphasis on prevention For a clear warning of the fallout from “a humanitarian catastrophe has in Canada? privately as Quebec, Ontario, and increased privatization in healthcare rather than cure, a Cuban family Alberta move forward with plans been averted only because the Prevention, Prevention, Prevention doctor’s day to day work includes – look at the pharmaceutical industry Cuban government has maintained for increased privatization. Alberta profits in Canada and its effects on A country like Cuba, which utilizing detailed prevention Premier Ralph Klein’s “Third Way” a high level of budgetary support programs, consisting of a yearly medical spending. The nine largest for a health care system designed recognizes healthcare as a healthcare plan would basically drug companies made an average fundamental right, not as a potential categorizing of each patient into detonate public healthcare, as it would to deliver primary and preventative a group (healthy, at risk, ill or return on investment of 40.9% health care to all citizens.” market, can focus healthcare on the allow doctors to work both publicly between 1991-2000, and whereas simplest and most beneficial areas, chronically ill, and disabled), and and privately simultaneously, and prescription drugs amounted to 8.7% which means prevention as opposed visiting them in their home a certain lacks any restrictions on choosing of health care costs in the 1970s, private healthcare. today the figure is 16.2% However, within the myriad Let us also look to the “flexible” of varicolored pills bearing the private healthcare system in the names of endless reports, accords, United States, where over 43.3 “third ways”, partnerships, and million people lack health insurance, contradictory terms being pushed with more than 125,000 people towards the Canadian healthcare losing coverage every month. Where system by business elites, including every year, according to a Families the hardest of all to swallow, that USA study, the deaths of 18,000 of “private health care,” emerges people between the ages of 25 and 64 the powerful and effective example can be attributed to lack of insurance. of Cuba. An example proving Where debt due to medical bills is that better care for everyone can the largest single cause of personal be provided for less, much less, bankruptcies, even though 76% of given that the priority remains those who filed for bankruptcy were maintaining quality and accessible actually covered under some sort of healthcare as a fundamental human health insurance. Where the infant right. People have fought for this mortality rate has actually increased both inside and out of Canada, and of late, from 6.8 to 7 deaths out of always against the very same forces every 1000 live births. who push the privatization agenda today. Any remaining public aspects According to the Canadian Centre of healthcare in Canada must be for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), maintained, and our demand should overhead costs account for 2% of not only be against privatization, but healthcare costs in Canada, while in HEU members on strike. for complete government funding of the more “innovative” U.S. model, April 25 2004. all aspects of healthcare.
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 20 By Noah Fine
The Case of 5 Cuban Heroes in US Jails By Noah Fine Who are the 5 heroes? receiving news of this victory, the In Vancouver as part of the the much-needed media coverage that is non-existent in the US. We “I’ve learned how fortunate I am Gerardo Hernández, Ramón US government through a federal international effort to demand to be defending these five young prosecutor requested that the entire freedom for the 5 Cuban Heroes, will continue to fight in Vancouver Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, th for the liberty of these 5 innocent men as a U.S. attorney. I have Fernando González and René 12 judge panel of the 11 Circuit the Free the Cuban 5 Committee- been personally able to appreciate Court review their decision in hopes Vancouver has organized consistent men and we encourage you to help González, are 5 Cuban men that us in this great task. their courage, gallantry and strong were sent by Cuba to Miami in of blocking any progress that could education and actions to alert principles, and this has been a the early 90’s and jailed by the be made in the trial. people in Canada about this case For more information about the privilege. I can also state that all the US in September of 1998. These It has been over three months since of injustice. Alongside forums, Cuban 5 or upcoming events other attorneys on the team feel this men were sent to Miami on a the 11th Circuit Court began review petitioning, and discussions, we in Vancouver demanding their way.” - Leonard Weinglass part of mission against the terrorism that of their previous decision for a re- have organized a protest at the US freedom please check out our the defence team for the 5 Cuban has plagued the Cuban people for trial and we still have no word of Consulate every month to build website at www.vancubasolidarity. Heroes fifty years. Unarmed and in every their current position. We have now pressure against the US and to reach com/freethefivevan.html A rash of terrorism against Cuba way unprotected, these men had only what we share with millions with a deadly case of manic the courageous job of infiltrating of people in Cuba and around the negligence from the U.S. the right-wing Cuban community world: Our hope and conviction for in Miami to uncover information the right of return for these 5 anti- While the US is busy fighting its that would lead to further terrorism terrorist Cubans to their families. “war on terror,” abroad, millions of against their people, they were people around the world are asking, “I feel optimistic but at the same successful. Throughout their “what about the terrorism bred in time I realise the limitations of the mission, the 5 Cuban Heroes were the United States?” Who, if not the court system in this country, so I am able to stop over 170 acts of terror. US government, is keeping tabs ready to continue in the struggle, be These men were not honoured or and combating this terror from the it through a new trial or not. In that even mentioned in the US for their US? The answer to this question is struggle I know we can count on great task. Instead after submitting simple: The people who come under you, and I am most grateful to you the evidence they had collected attack from this aggression, notably, for your support and solidarity.” about these right-wing terrorist the Cuban people. groups, they were jailed, placed Fernando González one of the 5 Since Cuba’s revolution in 1959, immediately in solitary confinement Cuban Heroes in a letter to the Free its people have been under constant for 17 months, and handed a trial the Cuban 5 Committee attack from Miami based terrorist – the longest in US history – in the Vancouver March 12, 2006 groupings often supported by the most unacceptable place for a trial Free the Cuban Five Committee - Vancouver Picket Action. CIA who commit acts of sabotage to be held in the world that has How you can Help April 24 2006.
against Cuba. One individual anything to do with Cuba: Miami. known particularly well by both Given sentences ranging from 15 the US government and the Cuban years to two life sentences, it is in people for his commitment to this condition that these 5 brave terrorism is Luis Posada Carriles. heroes have lived for almost 8 years A documented co-conspirator of the without any evidence against them. 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cuban Although charged with “conspiracy airliner that killed all 73 people on to commit espionage” and board. Posada having escaped the “conspiracy to commit murder” the arm of justice numerous times with prosecution admits it has no evidence help from the US is now awaiting to prove these accusations. results on his refugee claim in the Legal roller coaster US. This is a man- a terrorist with a documented history- has been given In August 2005, 3 judges of the the ability to claim refugee status 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in in the US, while five Cuban men- Atlanta granted the Cuban 5 a re- heroes- are in jail for attempting to trial and change of venue to a place end this ongoing terrorism on Cuba less hostile then that of Miami. by Posada and his supporters in This was a short-lived victory for a Miami. small bit of justice for the 5. After A SHORT REPLY FROM GERARDO HERNÁNDEZ ONE OF THE 5 CUBAN HEROES
By Noah Fine in the fight against imperialism and for Humanity. To Gerardo In mid-February we here in Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Vancouver felt it necessary to write Antonio Guerrero, Fernando to our 5 Cuban heroes with updates González and René González, we on our work and give support for thank you all for your human and their current battle for a re-trial. We revolutionary work. were honoured to receive responses from these five great freedom Seremos como el Che - We will be fighters and have been anxious to like Che share their message of solidarity with supporters across Canada, In solidarity, especially with all of you. Free the Cuban 5 Committee- We would like to thank the 5 Heroes Vancouver for contributing the ultimate sacrifice
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 21 “Cuba, no matter our limitations... has always shared the few things CUBAN AMBASSADOR VANCOUVER we have” Governments go and go and go, but you remain. That is why you are important to us. You have always TOUR A HUGE SUCCESS! supported us, since the beginning when Cuba was almost totally isolated (in terms of diplomatic Hundreds Attend Events relations) people like you stood together with us. It has such value for us, that is why the Cuban people try to show our gratitude every single second in our lives, because By Tamara Hansen all of you here have always had a lot of courage, to not to hide your
st support for Cuba, but to show in On Friday March 31 2006 any way your support for Cuba and Vancouver Communities in that is quite important. Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC) was honoured to co-host an event with So let me thank you in this humble the Cuban Ambassador to Canada, way for your constant support, Ernesto Senti. The event was a part but also for your future support. of a week long tour co-sponsored Because we rely people like you, by the Canadian-Cuban Friendship really, and we will need your Association-Vancouver, the Social support no doubt about it, because Justice Committee of the Unitarian we have a lot of fights ahead. Church and the Free the Cuban This is an important year for Five Committee-Vancouver. Cuba, even in relation to the last The Vancouver/Victoria tour saw year, 2005. Despite the blockade, the Honourable Ernesto Senti visit despite limitations (some from our the University of Victoria, Capilano common neighbour) the Cuban College, the University of British economy grew 11.8%. That sounds Columbia, Kitsilano and Moscrop great, but it requires a lot of effort Secondary Schools and the Peretz at the same time. Centre for a city-wide event. Why? Because for many years the Whether speaking to young main industry in Cuba was the activists, activists who are young sugar industry. Sugar prices for at heart, professors, intellectuals, many years have been very low, high school students or the although today they are trying to Vancouver and District Labour increase them. So we restructured Council, Ernesto drew loud and our traditional sugar industry. enthusiastic applause. Speaking on Cuban Ambassador to Canada Ernesto Senti. We closed half of the sugar mills Cuba’s struggle for independence because we need the most efficient and on Canada-Cuba relations, ones only. every talk was slightly different Vancouver, Tamara Hansen, Guevara Volunteer Brigade. She was excerpts from the talk the Cuban Then all of the lands are now depending on the topic, the mood coordinator of Vancouver followed by Nazir Rizvi, long-time Ambassador to Canada Ernesto dedicated to other industries, to and the questions. Communities in Solidarity with Cuba President of the Canadian-Cuban Senti gave that night: agriculture, cattle industry. No one, (VCSC) began event with a brief Friendship Association who gave a no one was left in the streets, the account of her life-changing trip warm welcome to the Ambassador. Cuban Ambassador to Canada At the Peretz Centre event in Ernesto Senti: Continues on Page 23 to Cuba last summer with the Che We would like to share with you here
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 22 Continued From Page 22 exactly the world right now. can ask ourselves: Is the blockade look back, and really it seems those earthquake; we have donated a violation of human rights when years - the early 1990’s to 1995 it hospitals to Pakistan. We helped government took care of hundreds So we must keep fighting, but you cannot even find aspirin, was a nightmare, for us who were people in Sri Lanka after the of thousands of workers. They are as part of the reform of the UN or when we have experienced a there. Maybe some people here tsunami. That is our duty. We do studying, they are working and there was an issue of trying to disease for which we need urgent went to Cuba during those years. that for nothing, only because we they are receiving 100% of the create a new order, instead of the help and that help was just around have love for humanity. payroll. That is a policy of the UN Human Rights Commission. We still have a lot of problems; the corner in the US, but because of Cuban revolution. That organ has unfortunately been we are not a perfect society. We do Today, we are working quite manipulated for many years, not the blockade we cannot reach it. Is not intend to present ourselves as closely with Venezuela. Not But in terms of politics, despite the only against Cuba but also against a this is violation of human rights? the centre of the world, perfection, only with the number of doctors, US administration’s policy towards group of countries, and the powers Who are the violators of Human there is no perfect society. But I teachers, paramedics or sport Cuba we will have an interesting have never been condemned for Right? Who has kept people think that Cubans are quite proud trainers that we have there. We are and very important event in Cuba violations of Human Rights. Okay, without trial, under torture, and in of our values because these are joining efforts, we are joining the next September, and for the second there was a decision, Cuba voted in addition- in an occupied territory, human beings with respect. Which strengths of both our countries. time in many years - the first time favour, to create a new council for in Guantanamo Bay for years? is the most important thing. The Venezuela, because it is a rich was back in 1979 - Cuba will Human Rights. You know, Cuba So my friends not only for the rest I consider value added really, country which it is now using become the president of the non- has been a member of the of the sake of Cuba, I can say for the if you don’t have a respect you for the sake of its people. Cuba, aligned movement. former Human Rights Commission sake of mankind, we have a lot don’t know solidarity, etc. because of the human resources This will be quite a challenge. for many years. So the challenge of challenges. By chance, we also We are only human beings despite we have our professionals. race, gender, and beliefs- religious Do you know that around 250,000 or political, we have the same good people from around Latin and bad things and feelings. So then America, not only in Venezuela it is up to us to always find common and Cuba, have been operated on ground to communicate and we can for cataracts for free? We keep think and be totally different, but doing that today. You know very we need respect each other and to well that Cuba offered support be as equals. Because no state is with doctors and medicines to the above the other, no citizens above US government during Hurricane the other in other countries, no Katrina, and they didn’t respond. matter how poor or developed it Now that we have won second is. We can experience the same place in the baseball [note: diseases and the same causes of World Baseball Classic], now the death. We have the same friends for money won will go to victims of example, you can be quite rich, but Hurricane Katrina. if someone here blew up, we would There are a lot of examples, but all die. Because no one can gather reason will prevail. It is true that all of the oxygen in one pocket to sometimes it is quite hard and survive, even the richest person in we must fight. That has been the world. So far, as far as I know humankind for centuries, but there is no chance on mars or on reason will prevail and we are all the moon. sure of that otherwise we would Another lesson, and I know that not be here. you respect this very much, and I am like you, as part of my people we must really be proud of is that I want to thank you because all Cuba, no matter our limitations, of you as a part of this great no matter its development, has country and this great people are always shared the few things we contributing to the bright future have. of our kids, and their kids too. We have a lot of examples of Thank you very much. Cuban Ambassador Ernesto Senti receives Squamish Raven carving from that. A few recent examples: Giselle Aiabens Indigenous activist Capilano Students Union Organizer. Remember the Haitian crisis?
Because we will try together, is that the US has stated openly, along with the other members of that they don’t want Cuba in that the non-aligned movement, around council because they consider 114 states, to discuss many things Cuba a constant violator of Human and to get support all across the Rights. It is our right as a member world to respect the sovereignty, of the United Nations and founder against war, against terrorism, of the UN to have a representative respecting religion and beliefs of for candidacy to be elected again our countries. onto the new council. Elections We will have another challenge have already been called within the this year too. Do you know that UN general assembly for next May. the United Nations has been That will be another struggle. involved in reforming some of its Of course we have constant institutions? That’s okay, we need challenges. Also for 2006 around a solid United Nations. We must September or October, Cuba defend multilateralism. No matter will present the draft resolution that there are a lot of things we condemning once more the must do, no matter that there are needless blockade towards Cuba. It some that try to constantly use is a fact that all of the international the Security Council and United community except three, basically Nations for different purposes three that always vote against it, than those in the charter of that support Cuba’s right (like the right same United Nations. We need an of any country) to live in peace, organization that somehow gathers free in a normal environment, and all of the states together. It is true without the blockade. that after more than 60 years, I know the answer, but maybe we maybe the UN doesn’t represent
Ernesto Senti Speaks to 250 Capilano College Students.
have the same neighbour We had a little more than 500 Canada and Cuba each doctors, paramedics and other SUBSCRIBE! with its own perception professionals in Haiti. No one of our neighbour and our touched one of our people relations. because they were helping the I think all of these elements Haitian people. And they are not are a part of your minute- only in the capital- they are all across the country. by-minute work. We are Send your name, address, province/state, happy because we are We now have more than 30,000 country and postal/zip code with the alive. Do you really feel doctors across the world, mainly equivalent of $40.00 USD (for 52 weeks) the world expected us to in the Third World. Few of them by postal or electronic bank transfer to: survive after the collapse are in the capitals, some of them Ediciones Cubanas, Apartado 6260, C.P. of the former Soviet Union in the middle of the jungles. They 10699, Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba. and the historical links are there, our best ambassadors. In the United States or anywhere else in between the former socialist We have almost 3,000 doctors, the world, go to the Pathfinder website at: countries and Cuba? It was paramedics, professionals and www.pathfinderpress.com quite tough for us. Now we technicians in Pakistan after the
FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 23 EVENTS and ACTIONS Weekly Vigils Vancouver Against the Occupation of Status for All! Palestine National Day of Action Friday, May 26th and March in support of Friday, June 2nd – 5pm immigrant rights Israeli Consulate (180 Sat May 27 2:00pm Bloor St. West)Organized Vancouver Art Whitehorse by: Jewish Women’s Gallery Committee to End the (robson and howe) Yellowknife Occupation Organized by For information: jwceo@ STATUS Coalition hotmail.com | www. [email protected] coalitiontoronto.com 778-885-0040 Saint John’s Kingston Victoria Edmonton Langley Latin Fair Vancouver Saskatoon Halifax Trilateral Sister th Saturday, June 24 Calgary Winnipeg Cities Conference info@ Regina Conference to link US latinsummerfest. and Canadian cities with com www. Montreal sister cities in Cuba. latinsummerfest. Ottowa June 9-11 com/events.htm Canada Out of Co-Sponsored by: Kingston-Cinefuegos Afghanistan! Status for All! US/UK Out of Iraq Toronto Sister City Association World Peace Forum National Day of Action & the US-Cuba Sister March and Rally March in support of June 23rd-28th Cities Association June 29 4pm immigrant rights For more information: For more nfo: Vancouver Art Gallery th geocities.com/ worldpeaceforum.ca (Robson st @ Howe St) Sat May 27 – 1pm mawovancouver.org Toronto: 252 Bloor St. ccfakingston [email protected] Organized by: No One is Picket Against USA Hands Illegal – Toronto Caledonia: Canadian Occupation of Afghanistan Off Cuba and Entry, Exclusion and Benefit Concert for Victoria Thur May 25 12:30 Venezuela! Resistance: Syro- Six Nations Lebanese Immigration Canadian Armed Victoria Days of Peace: Sat May 20th 1pm June 16th – 12PM June 18-24 History in Canada Forces Recruitment US Consulate [1880’s to 1950’s] Six Nations Centre In support of World (University Ave) Thur May 25th – 7pm Reclamation Site Peace Forum 2006 1070 W Georgia Organized by: Canadian- School of Community If interested in mawovancouver.org For more information: & Public Affairs Cuban Friendship Association Concordia University performing, contact: [email protected] www. – Toronto - 2149 MacKay St. 613-396-2767 victoriadaysofpeace.ca Suggested Donation $5
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FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 24 HANDS OFF
CUBA& VENEZUELA!
International Day of Action Saturday May 20 2006 RALLY @ 1:00PM Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson St. Side) Organized by: MARCH @ 1:30PM Hands Off Cuba & Venezuela May 20 Coalition Endorsed by: [email protected] Hospital Employees Union BC, Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Pastors for Peace, Capilano Students Union, UBC Social Justice Centre, Langara Students’ Union, Tim Louis former Vancouver City Councilor, Lisa Barrett Bowen Island Councilor, Code Pink Women for Peace, Comox Valley Peace Group, Canadian Cuban Friendship Association (CCFA), Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC), Vancouver Internationalist Bolivarian Circle “Bob Everton”, Milenio Spanish Language Newspaper, Shahrvand BC Newspaper, Working TV, Hands off Venezuela, Anti-social Skateshop, OS12 - Hip Hop Artist/Actor/Indigenous Activist, Canada-Bolivia Solidarity Committee, La Surda Latin American Collective, Latinos in Action, Victoria Goods for Cuba, Victoria in Solidarity with Venezuela, Free the Cuban 5 Committee – Vancouver, Michael Lebowitz - Professor Emeritus of Economics SFU, Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO), Republic Newspaper, Free the Cuban 5 Cttee - Courtenay, Okalani - Artist, MAWO-SFU Club, Communist League Canada, Bus Riders’ Union, World Community Development Education Society, Kla How Yah FM - on Co-op Radio 102.7FM, Coalition Against War On the People of Iraq and Internationally (CAWOPI), Kootenay School of Writing, Michael Neuonen - writer, Fire This Time Newspaper, Iranian Cttee Against War, El Bus de las Siete - Coop Radio 102.7FM, Communist Party of Canada, Coalition of Concerned Citizens - JN Burnett Secondary, Obese Chief - Hip Hop Artist, Student Voice - Highland Secondary, Students for Peace - Nanaimo Secondary, La Vanguardia Newspaper, Youth Third World Alliance (Y3WA), Kanadian Posi Kidz, Ecumenical Task Force for the Americas, Fightback, Anticapitalist Community Forum, Collective Perspectives - Coop Radio 102.7FM, Community Solidarity Coalition - Victoria, Langara Students United Against War and Occupation (LSUAWO), Our Community Bikes, Douglas College Anti-War Club, Poets Against War, Work Less Party, The Knoll Magazine, Manik 1derful - Hip Hop Artist/Indigenous Activist, DADABASE, Colombia Solidarity Committee, America Latina al Dia (ALAD) - on Co-op Radio 102.7 FM, Group of Relatives and Friends of Political Prisoners in Mexico, Kitsilano Peace Group, Wolakota Youth Council, Sounds and Furies Productions - Vancouver, Grassroots Women, Korean Student Network Against War, Kwantlen Students Against War and Occupation, The Other Campaign Vancouver and Organizations in Solidarity with Atenco
PASTORS FOR PEACE CARAVAN TO CUBA RALLY TO SEND OFF THE CARAVAN! 12 NOON - PEACE ARCH BORDER CROSSING SUNDAY, JUNE 18th CANADA OUT OF AFGHANISTAN! US/UK OUT OF IRAQ!
HANDS OFF IRAN, CUBA, & VENEZUELA ! SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL OPPRESSED NATIONS!
ART GALLERY (ROBSON & HOWE) VANCOUVER RALLY AT aRARMED FORCE S RECRUITMENT CENTRE CANADIAN MARCH T0 june 29 4pm Hosted By: Victoria Goods for Cuba, Bellingham In THURSDAY Solidarity with Cuba, and Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC) Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) . 604-322-1764 www.vancubasolidarity.com www.mawovancouver.org FIRE THIS TIME Volume 3 Issue 3 25