ICELAND KR200 · NEW ZEALAND $3.00 · SWEDEN KR15 · UK £1.00 · U.S. $1.50 I.ESSDNS FROM REVDUJTIDNARY HISTORY 'Marianas in Combat': women and the Cuban Revolution THE -PAGES6-7 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 66/NO. 48 DECEMBER 23, 2002 New York transit workers Washington releases vote to authorize strike plans for BY STU SINGER • • AND OLGA RODRIGUEZ NEW YORK-More than 10,000 work­ reservtsts tn ers on the New York City bus and subway system, members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), met here in two separate shift waronlraq meetings and voted overwhelmingly to au- BY BRIAN WILLIAMS Putting in place the front-line and backup forces for an invasion of Iraq, Washington Support transit has released plans for an increased mobili­ zation ofNational Guard and Reserve troops. workers' fight Up to 10,000 such forces will be imme­ diately activated for "security duty" in the SEEPAGE 15 1'0!>('['"1"·. ~ United States and abroad. With an order to . L·\\1\IS invade, that number would increase to more thorize a strike after their contract expires than a quarter of a million troops stationed December 15. at airports, train stations, power plants, fac­ The December 7 meeting was marked by tories, and military bases. the determination of the transit workers to The number is in addition to the more than defend their working conditions, benefits, ealth Benef1t~ 2\P CLASS 50,000 reservists already mobilized through­ and wages in face of the offensive by the out the United States. The plans include wealthy rulers against the working people coastline patrols by Navy and Coast Guard Continued on Page 5 Participants in October------· 30 transit workers' rally state their demands in contract fight Reserve forces. Fighter jets will be scrambled over U.S. cities. In the big-business media Washington presents its assault plans as close to com­ plete. In a December 8 New York Times ar­ Staffs of 'Perspectiva Mundial' and the ticle, military officials said they will "soon have enough heavy tanks, warships, aircraft, bombs and troops" in the region "to begin 'Militant' fight INS effort to exclude editor an attack ... sometime in January." The report Roger Calero arrested at Houston airport on return from assignment abroad Continued on Page 2

BY MICHAEL ITALIE tiona! border, the INS is seeking to "ex­ Calero, 33, has lived in the United States On the evening of December 3, Roger clude" Calero-deny him entry into the since 1985, when his family moved here Venezuela: Calero, Militant staff writer and associate United States and deport him to Nicaragua. from Nicaragua and he was a high school­ editor of Perspectiva Mundial, a Spanish­ To do this, immigration officials aim to re­ age youth, and has been a permanent U.S. language news magazine published in New voke his permanent resident status. Continued on Page 9 mass protest York, was detained by immigration agents at Houston Intercontinental Airport on his return from a reporting assignment abroad. opposes After holding him for several hours at the Inside an INS jail in Houston airport, Immigration and Naturalization Ser­ vice (INS) officials told him they were de­ BY ROGER CALERO from El Salvador, who has been living in bosses' strike nying him entry to the United States and HOUSTON PROCESSING CENTER, this country since 1974, was arrested at the locked him up in an immigration prison. Texas-The impact of the U.S. govern­ airport five months ago as he was returning BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS Calero, a 12-year permanent resident, now ment's increasingly brutal attacks on work­ from a visit to his family there. MIAMI-Some 400,000 peasants, work­ faces exclusion from this country by the ers' rights is felt here by more than 500 The INS detained Garcia when he got off ers, students and others converged in INS. workers of many different nationalities who a Continental Airlines flight from San Sal­ Caracas December 7 to protest a six-day­ Calero was on his way home from a re­ are locked up here at any given time. Most vador. They said the record of a misde­ old bosses' strike and other provocations porting assignment in Mexico, covering an here face the threat of exclusion or deporta­ meanor case going back to 1987 showed up aimed at overthrowing the government of tion with few if any rights to judicial review in the computer. Garcia had passed through President Hugo Chavez. Marching past or legal representation. this same airport a year ago with no prob­ Miraflores, the presidential palace, they de­ Among those detained at this jail is this lems. He has been a legal resident since the manded the government take firm measures Join the fight to reporter. I was arrested December 3 at Hous­ U.S. government granted him that status against the pro-imperialist opposition and ton Intercontinental Airport as I returned through the 1986 general amnesty. their coup plans. free Roger Calero! home from a reporting assignment abroad "We are paying a second time for some­ The same day thousands of protesters for the Spanish-language magazine thing we did in the past," said Garcia. "We marched in an affluent section of eastern SEEPAGE 15 Perspectiva Mundial and the labor and so­ obtained legal papers and now they put us Caracas in a quieter demonstration, demand­ cialist newsweekly the Militant. in jail." ing Chavez's resignation. Fedecamaras, the Every night we are joined by dozens of After his conviction on the misdemeanor Continued on Page 3 international student conference sponsored workers of all nationalities brought here by Continued on Page 5 by the Continental Organization of Latin the federal Border Patrol after they are ar­ American and Caribbean Students, and the rested attempting to cross the border. And largest annual Latin American bookfair, every night they pull many others out of the Also Inside: both held simultaneously in Guadalajara. prison dormitories to put them on a plane He had traveled to Mexico after reporting or a bus-handcuffed and shackled-to be Guantanamo prisoners on a conference in Havana, Cuba, on the sent to their countries of origin or, in the challenge detentions 3 Free Trade Area of the Americas, attended case of those born in Mexico, dumped on by trade unionists and other delegates from the other side of the border. Frame-up unravels in Latin America, the United States, and Located just a few minutes from Hous­ New York 'jogger' rape case I 0 Canada. ton Intercontinental Airport, the "Houston After learning of his arrest, Calero's col­ Processing Center"-the official name of Rising percentage of workers leagues at Penpectiva Mundial and other the jail used by the Immigration and Natu­ in U.S. lack health coverage I 0 supporters of his rights announced the ralization Service (INS)-is also where the launching of a public campaign to demand immigration cops bring legal residents ar­ South African mining that the INS release the journalist and drop rested at the airport on their arrival from bosses resist increased its exclusion proceedings against him. abroad when they decide to arrest them on black ownership I I "We are fighting this government denial the basis of a previous conviction on their of my right to work as a journalist in this records. country," Calero said in a phone interview In the first few days since I've been in­ Algerian refugees in Montreal from the Houston Processing Center, as the carcerated here, I've had the opportunity to force government INS prison is called. meet several fellow workers and hear their Roger Calero, associate to hold off deportations 13 Treating the airport point of entry and the stories. Many are similar to my own. Perspectiva Mundial and staff writer for immigration prison as part of the interna- Manuel Garcia, 63, a carpenter originally the Militant. Washington calls up Large demonstrations in Iran reservists to prepare support Palestinian struggle for war on Iraq Continued from front page Washington's invasion plan also includes described a "constant hum of military prepa­ placing tens of thousands of infantry and rations" throughout the Gulf. Special Forces troops in Turkey, ready to The preparations include ongoing exer­ drive into Iraq over its northern border, tar­ cises in Kuwait that simulate an invasion; a geting oil fields located in the regions in Qatar-based "command and control" exer­ which the Kurdish people and their politi­ cise involving 1,000 "planners" flown in cal organizations predominate. from the Central Command headquarters in The Bush administration has also asked Florida; the daily delivery of armaments, the Turkish government to prepare to dis­ along with the equipment needed to unload patch a large force of its own into northern them, from tugboats to forklifts; and the Iraq. "If we're going to have significant drawing up of blueprints for strikes by spe­ ground forces in the north, this is the coun­ cial operations forces. try they have to come through. There is no The military mobilizations on home soil other option," said Wolfowitz. and in the Arab-Persian Gulf region have To date the Turkish government-which proceeded alongside the intrusive "inspec­ has already faced one 10,000-strong dem­ tions" carried out by United Nations teams onstration in Istanbul against its backing for on Iraqi government facilities and industrial the U.S. plans-has balked at these de­ Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Tehran and other Iranian cities Novem­ and scientific sites. mands. "It may be difficult to see tens of ber 29 to support Palestinian self-determination and condemn the Israeli and U.S. On December 7, a day before the UN Se­ thousands of American forces being trans­ governments. Marchers labeled the Israeli regime "the standard bearer of state curity Council-imposed deadline, the Iraqi ported through Turkish territory into Iraq or terrorism." A resolution issued at the Tehran demonstration stated, "Today the government turned over a 12,000-page dec­ being stationed somewhere in Turkey to global tyranny headed by the United States is assaulting and plundering the Is­ laration on its arms programs. Iraq Maj. carry out strikes inside Iraq," stated Turkish lamic world under the guise of fighting terrorism. We condemn any troop move­ Gen. Hussam MuhammadAmin stated that foreign minister Yasar Yakis. ments and military actions carried out by the United States against independent "Iraq is empty of any weapons of mass de­ "Nevertheless," noted a Washington Post and Islamic countries, including Iraq." struction." article, "Pentagon planners are expected to The report was immediately sent to UN press Turkey to allow tens of thousands of bodies based in New York. U.S. officials coalition troops on its soil to prepare for a Persian Gulf. He also called for troops to leave the country for interrogation, even have made it clear that the report will be multi-pronged attack on Iraq from the north, fill the gaps left by Gulf-bound U.S. forces without the scientists' agreement. useful to them insofar as it helps provide a south and west." Bush has invited Recep at their bases in Germany, Italy, and else­ "If you go back and look at the history of pretext for military action. According to one Tayyip Erdogan, the chairman of Turkey's where in Europe. A NATO official said that inspections in Iraq," stated Rumsfeld, "the report, "National security officials said ... that ruling Justice and Development Party, to the the governments of Britain, Denmark, reality is that things have been found-not the declaration must be more than accurate; White House for further discussions. Spain, Portugal, Norway, Poland, the Czech by discovery but through defectors." it must lead United Nations inspectors to A bipartisan delegation from the Senate Republic, and Turkey expressed "strong and New York Times columnist Thomas arms caches, or to irrefutable evidence that Foreign Relations committee has followed unequivocal support" for the U.S. war Friedman, in a op-ed piece entitled '"Sodom' they have been destroyed." up Wolfowitz's Turkish visit with a trip to preparations. Hussein's Iraq," urged Washington "to hold U.S. officials have just completed visits northern Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Despite pronouncements against German the U.N.'s feet to the fire." He quoted a U.S. to members of the U.S.-dominated Euro­ Arabia, Israel, and the occupied territories. forces taking part in a military assault official saying that "the key is finding a de­ pean NATO military alliance to hammer out In northern Iraq committee chairman Joseph against Iraq, the government of Gerhard fector through interviews. That's the only assistance to the assault. Biden warned Kurdish leaders that they Schroder is moving to increase its presence way we're going to find anything." should appreciate "the concerns of their in the area of the coming invasion. Wolfowitz in Turkey neighbors"-a reference to the Turkish Berlin currently has six Fuch tanks and Saudis may be next U.S. target In Turkey, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul government's determination to brutally sup­ 52 troops stationed in Kuwait. The parlia­ Concerned that Saudi Arabia could be Wolfowitz secured the newly elected press any Kurdish movement for self-deter­ ment has approved the deployment of up to Washington's next target after Iraq, govern­ government's agreement to maintain U.S. mination on Turkish soil. 800 additional troops to Iraq's southern ment officials in that country have consulted forces' access to ports and air bases. On In a meeting with NATO-member ambas­ neighbor. with their counterparts in Egypt, Syria, and December 4 the Bush administration an­ sadors in Brussels December 4, Wolfowitz According to Germany's Die Welt news­ the Gulf states about the ramifications of an nounced plans to upgrade these facilities to requested the deployment of various coun­ paper, the "inspectors" have also asked Ber­ overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. tries' forces at bases throughout the Arab- lin to provide them with unmanned recon­ "The Saudi efforts want to ensure that no naissance planes. major Arab country will plot against Riyadh Washington has made clear that regard­ or any other regime targeted by the United less of what the United Nations "inspectors" States," an unnamed diplomat from the re­ tum up in the course of their provocative gion told a World Tribune.com reporter. operations, the burden of proof is on the "While Washington opposed Iraq on the is­ THE MILITANT Iraqi government to "cooperatively disarm." sue of weapons of mass destruction, the "The United States knows that Iraq has Saudis are worried that Washington will use weapons of mass destruction," Secretary of the banner of democracy" against them, Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrogantly as­ added the diplomat. Haitian immigrants fight discrimination serted. "The U.K. knows that they have Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud AI weapons of mass destruction. Any country Faisal has been touring Middle Eastern capi­ Haitians living in Floria have on the face of the Earth with an active intel­ tals to urge them to sign an agreement at their been protesting racist ligence program knows that Iraq has weap­ next summit to pledge opposition to any U.S. discrimination, cop brutality, ons of mass destruction." effort for a "regime change" in the region. and the automatic jailing by In a meeting with Hans Blix, Bush ad­ "No one can change the Saudi regime but ministration officials have urged him to Allah," said Saudi interior minister Prince U.S. immigration cops ofthose make use of the section of the recently Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz. The proposal also who arrive on flimsy boats from passed UN Security Council resolution 1441 asks Arab League members to oppose any Haiti. Read the 'Militant' to get that gives "inspectors" the authority to round U.S. attempt to freeze the assets of any gov­ the truth about this struggle and up Iraqi scientists and demand that they ernment. why it is in the interests of all working people. address. The Militant Canada: Send Canadian $75 for one-year subscription to Militant, 123 7 Jean-Talon est, Vol. 66/No. 48 Montreal, QC. Postal Code: H2R I WI. Britain, Ireland: £36 for one year by check Closing news date: December 10, 2002 SUBSCRIBE TODAYI or international money order made out to Mili­ Editor: MARTiN KOPPEL tant Distribution, 4 7 The Cut, London, SE I 8LL, Business Manager: PAUL PEDERSON England. 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2 The Militant December 23, 2002 Venezuela: mass protest opposes bosses' strike

Continued from front page gan to be felt in several states. "Here in country's main business association, and Valencia the reason is that a number of gas officials ofthe Confederation ofVenezuelan station owners shut down to support the Workers (CTV) called a work stoppage strike, or pump only part of the gas they December 2 demanding a rapid referendum have," said Nellie Yaerte December 7. "The on whether Chavez should remain in office. workers are not behind this. The owners are The strike had limited success and seemed the big capitalists, and like many bankers to wane two days later. Opposition forces they have shut down. We are against them, then attempted to shut down oil production and they are against us." It was a typical view and distribution. By December 7, oil exports expressed by workers in other interviews. from Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest The bosses' strike began after the govern­ petroleum producer, slowed. Gasoline short­ ment rejected a November 28 decision by the ages began inside the country. National Electoral Council (CEN) to call a On the evening of December 6, gunmen referendum February 2 on whether Chavez opened fire at an opposition rally of hun­ should remain in office. The opposition had dreds at Plaza Francia in theAltamira neigh­ turned in 1.5 million signatures of Venezu­ borhood of Caracas. More than 10 military elans backing such a referendum in early officers who took part in the April coup that November. Even though the results would be failed to unseat Chavez have been staging a nonbinding, opposition figures hoped a poor sit-in there for months. The site has become showing for the president would force him an organizing center for opposition forces. to resign. The government argued that the Three people were killed in the shooting country's constitution provides for a binding and 28 wounded. Security forces arrested referendum of this kind inAugust 2003, mid­ seven people. One of them, a Portuguese way through Chavez's term. citizen, reportedly admitted to pulling the The country's Supreme Court declared trigger with a handgun. the November 28 CEN decision not valid Leaders of the pro-imperialist opposition because it was taken by a 3-1 vote with one used the incident to blame the government of its members absent, where a law requires for the killings and demand Chavez's resig­ a four-vote majority for this kind of ruling. nation. Government officials denounced The strike was preceded by other clashes. these claims, condemned the assault, and Tens of thousands of working people took to the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, in April Alfredo Peii.a, the mayor of Caracas and one pledged to bring those responsible to jus­ to oppose imperialist-backed coup against President Hugo Chavez. On December 7, of the most prominent figures in the pro­ tice. Vice president Jose Vicente Rangel 400,000 people marched in the capital to protest bosses' strike against government. imperialist opposition coalition, used the called the shootings a "provocation" to metropolitan police under his control to fire prompt further instability. growing demands by the toilers for firm By December 7, the captain and most of the on pro-Chavez demonstrators in Caracas November 12, killing one and wounding 20. Massive turnout at pro-Chavez march measures against those responsible for sabo­ crew of Pilin Leon had been replaced. tage in the state-owned oil industry, which During the first week of December the This was one of many such instances in the "About 30,000 people are coming to is run by the PVDSA. National Guard also arrested several country's capital in recent months. Caracas from Valencia," said Orlando Chavez reportedly said the government PVDSA managers who tried to lock and Pefia has also refused to budge in a labor Chirino, a leader of the textile workers union will fire striking tanker captains and replace weld shut the gates of refineries to prevent dispute with nearly a third ofthe police and in the country's main industrial center in a managers responsible for sabotaging oil pro­ production workers from entering. Accord­ attempted to force into early retirement pro­ December 7 telephone interview. "Most are duction. He also announced his cabinet will ing to several phone interviews and Venezu­ Chavez officers. After an armed confronta­ workers." He was in a bus at the time on his restructure the board of directors at the elan TV reports, about 40 percent of the oil tion between police officers on opposing way to Caracas for the march against the PVDSA oil company, saying he is consider­ giant's employees heeded the strike call, sides, the president deployed the National opposition strike. "The more the capitalists ing whether to accept the offer of most board largely technicians and administrative per­ Guard November 16 in armored personnel attack the poor, the more they are attacking members to resign made the day before. sonnel. That halted issuing the necessary carriers who took control of the city's 10 Chavez, the more we are determined to paperwork for export cargo. For this rea­ cop stations. Chavez also replaced the po­ fight," said Nellie Yaerte in another inter­ Developments in oil industry son, 23 tankers were unable to load cargo lice chief. View. On December 5 the Venezuelan navy and depart by December 5, bringing most Many workers and the majority of trade A health-care worker from Valencia, seized a tanker filled with 280,000 tons of exports to a standstill. In a number of cases, unions in basic industry opposed the reac­ Yaerte spoke to the Militant as she was get­ gasoline. The tanker, Pilin Leon, had been technicians shut off computerized controls tionary work stoppage. "Fedepetrol [the oil ting ready to leave for the same march in anchored a day earlier off Maracaibo by its in refineries as they left. workers union], the electrical workers, Sidor Caracas that morning. Yhonny Garcia from captain, Daniel Alfaro, a PVDSA employee, that organizes employees in steel and alu­ Maracaibo said 3,000 people made the nine­ in support of the bosses' strike to oust Most workers oppose bosses' strike minum, the metro workers union in Caracas, hour trip to the march from that city, the Chavez. The president called this "an act of "The National Guard and many produc­ and many others came out against the country's second largest and the capital of piracy." tion workers have been waging guerrilla strike," said Orlando Chirino. "The textile Zulia state, where much of the oil drilling Officers backing the pro-imperialist op­ warfare, by restarting operations through and auto plants run full shifts in Valencia, and production is concentrated. "Most of the position had grounded another five oil tank­ manual controls until other technicians can for example. Even chambers of commerce media here and internationally claim that ers, most of them empty, from the state fleet be found," said Yhonny Garcia from in at least three states broke with people in Maracaibo are banging pots and of more than 100, according to telephone Maracaibo. "Most production workers in oil Fedecamaras and said no to the strike." pans at the port to support the few pirates interviews and press accounts. Zulia Tow­ extraction and refining have not left their According to Chirino and others inter­ who grounded some oil tankers to back the ing, the largest private tugboat company on posts. The managers and many in the ad­ viewed across the country, a number ofbusi­ reactionary strike," he said. "But that's a very Lake Maracaibo, yanked all 13 of its tugs ministration are part of a caste who don't nesses-McDonald's and Wendy's restau­ small part of the picture." from service to join the strike, AP reported want their privileges touched if the rants, a number of large shopping centers Mari Perez from San Carlos, the capital of December 5. Protesters on tug boats had Bolivarian revolution moves forward." mostly in well-off areas, several banks, and Cojedes, a largely agricultural state, said hun­ circled the Pilin Leon blowing whistles to Bolivarian is the term used by backers of a few other businesses--closed the first days dreds of farmers and others went to Caracas back its grounding. "Assaulting the PDVSA the president to describe the process un­ of the strike in Caracas, Valencia, and other "to stand up for our rights." Among them was is like assaulting the heart of Venezuela," leashed since his election. large urban centers. At best, the strike sue- her husband, Angel Sarmiento, a peasant. Chavez said in a televised speech that day. By December 6, gasoline shortages be- Continued on Page 12 Sarmiento toured visiting Militant reporters in July to land taken over by dozens of peas­ ant families from Compania Inglesa. A number of those interviewed pointed Guantanamo prisoners challenge detentions out that at the heart of the brewing class conflict are measures the government passed BY MICHAEL ITALIE lies or have access to an attorney. Washington to put them on trial or release a year earlier cutting into the prerogatives Prisoners held by Washington at the U.S. The Pentagon has labeled the men "un­ them to judicial authorities in their home ofbig capital. Significant among them is the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, some lawful combatants," refusing to recognize countries. "It is the legitimate right of any Law on Land and Agricultural Develop­ for more than a year without seeing an at­ them as prisoners of war, a classification that government, including and in particular the ment, which legalized government takeovers torney or being charged with a crime, are would require its actions to be judged ac­ United States, to do all it can to gather in­ of some large estates and their distribution challenging the legitimacy of those deten­ cording to the 1949 Geneva Convention. formation [on terrorism]," he said, "but how to landless families. The opposition has also tions. On December 2, lawyers for 12 Ku­ Held at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo, the long can you keep a person in legal limbo?" railed against provisions of the Law on Fish­ waitis and several British and Australian prisoners were captured by the U.S. mili­ ing and Aquaculture favoring small fisher­ citizens filed an appeal to the U.S. District tary in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the U.S. citizen wins right to see lawyer men over large monopolies. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., de­ months after September 11. Held for six months as an "enemy com­ Participation was lower than expected, manding the prisoners gain access to U.S. U.S. imperialist forces transported their batant" at a Navy brig in Charleston, South saidAntonioAguil16n, in a telephone inter­ courts. captives in the freezing holds of military Carolina, Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, scored view while the pro-Chavez rally was going Thomas Wilner, representing the 12 Ku­ cargo planes, under sedation and with hoods a victory December 4 when a federal judge on. "Because of the killings last night and waitis, said the prisoners are seeking "the or blacked-out goggles over their eyes, and in Manhattan ruled that he had the right to the last-minute change of date [for the most modest of rights ... we want access to held the prisoners in chicken-wire cages meet an attorney. march], there was some fear and confusion an impartial tribunal." A U.S. district judge exposed to the sun and rain, with one-inch Judge Michael Mukasey pointed out that and many buses did not make it to Caracas," ruled four months ago in favor of the Jus­ thick foam mats as beds, constantly hand­ "Padilla's need to consult with a lawyer is stated Aguillon, a member of the Bolivarian tice Department, which argued that because cuffed and shackled. obvious. He is held incommunicado at a Workers Force, a pro-Chavez union federa­ the prisoners are held outside the United Hoping to blunt some ofthe international military facility. His lawyer has been told tion. "Dozens of buses from the state of States they do not fall under the jurisdiction outcry against the conditions at the that there is no guarantee that even her cor­ Medina, for example, were turned back by of federal courts. The December 2 appeal Guantanamo concentration camp, the U.S. respondence to him would get through." police last night." calls on the court to "recognize Guantanamo brass claims morale has increased since they But Mukasey affirmed the government's Alfonso Rodriguez, a leader of the Fifth Bay for what it is: a fully American enclave expanded the detainees' exercise time to 20 power to hold Padilla, who goes by the name Republic Revolutionary Youth, said Chavez, with 'the basic attributes of full territorial minutes per week. Pointing to the 8-by-6.8- Abdullah al-Muhajir. in his speech to the rally, was responding to sovereignty."' foot cells, Army colonel John Perrone told The judge agreed with Washington's The U.S. government continues to occupy journalists on a December 3 tour of the claims that the president can order the in­ the Guantanamo base at the eastern end of camp, "You see, there's plenty of room to definite detention ofU.S. citizens by declar­ THE MILITANT Cuba against the will of the Cuban people move around." ing them "enemy combatants," ruling that and government. The United Nations High Commissioner it was "logically and legally" sound and Washington is holding nearly 600 detain­ for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, needed only to meet the minimal standard """"""·themilitant.com ees there from some 40 countries, none of offered a mild rebuke of U.S. denial ofba­ of providing "some evidence" to back up whom have been allowed to see their fami- sic human rights to the prisoners, calling on the president's decision. December 23, 2002 The Militant 3 Trotsky on curve of capitalist development Reprinted below is an excerpt from damental but derivative economic phenom­ "The Curve of Capitalist Development," ena. They unfold on the basis of the devel­ a letter by communist leader Leon opment of productive forces through the Trotsky that was published in the Soviet medium of market relations. But cycles ex­ Union in 1923. The letter addresses the plain a great deal, forming as they do practical implications for class-conscious through automatic pulsation an indispens­ workers of discerning the difference be­ able dialectical spring in the mechanism of tween the periodic ups and downs of the capitalist society. The breaking points of the business cycle and the long-term ascent trade-industrial conjuncture bring us into a or decline in the curve of capitalist devel­ greater proximity with the critical knots in opment. This question was discussed by the web of the development of political ten­ the international communist movement dencies, legislation, and all forms of ideol­ in the half decade after the October Revo­ ogy. lution in Russia. Trotsky's letter is printed in New International no. 10, copyright© Dynamic development of cycles 1994 by 408 Printing and Publishing But capitalism is not characterized solely Corp., reprinted by permission. Subhead­ by the periodic recurrence of cycles-oth­ ings are by the Militant. erwise what would occur would be a com­ plex repetition and not dynamic develop­ BY LEON TROTSKY ment. Trade industrial cycles are of differ­ U.S. tanks during 1990-91 Gulf War. That war, and the interimperialist rivalry that It is a very difficult task, impossible to ent character in different periods. The chief marked it, took place in a declining segment in the curve of capitalist development. solve in its full scope, to determine those difference between them is determined by subterranean impulses which economics quantitative interrelations between the cri­ transmits to the politics of today; and yet sis and the boom period within each given downward as a whole, signaling the decline we can then look not only for correspon­ the explanation of political phenomena can­ cycle. If the boom restores with a surplus of productive forces. dence-or to put it more cautiously, inter­ not be postponed, because the struggle can­ the destruction or constriction during the It is already possible to postulate a priori relationship between definitely delineated not wait. From this flows the necessity of preceding crisis, then capitalist development that epochs of energetic capitalist develop­ epochs of social life and the sharply ex­ resorting in daily political activity to expla­ moves upward. If the crisis, which signals ment must possess features-in politics, in pressed segments of the curve of capitalist nations which are so general that through destruction, or at all events contraction of law, in philosophy, in poetry-sharply dif­ development-but also for those direct sub­ long usage they become transformed into productive forces, surpasses in its intensity ferent from those in the epochs of stagna­ terranean impulses which unleash events. truisms. the corresponding boom, then we get as a tion or economic decline. Still more, a tran­ Along this road it is naturally not at all dif­ As long as politics keeps flowing in the result a decline in economy. Finally, if the sition from one epoch of this kind to a dif­ ficult to fall into the most vulgar same forms, within the same banks, and at crisis and boom approximate each other in ferent one must naturally produce the great­ schematization and, above all, to ignore the about the same speed, i.e., as long as the force, then we get a temporary and stagnat- est convulsions in the relationships between tenacious internal conditioning and succes­ accumulation of economic quantity has not sion of ideological processes-to become passed into a change of political quality, this oblivious of the fact that economics is deci­ type of clarifying abstraction ("the interests sive only in the last analysis. There has been of the bourgeoisie," "imperialism," "fas­ CURVE OF CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT no lack of caricature conclusions drawn cism") still more or less serves its task: not from the Marxist method! But to renounce to interpret a political fact in all its concrete­ .... on this account the above indicated formu­ ~;!! c;tg::e lation of the question ("it smells of ness, but to reduce it to a familiar social type, n-1 "'~ ~ l m m !t.o f m ~,...;: CD..,..,a~~ economism") is to demonstrate complete which is, of course, intrinsically of inesti­ SUPER­ < i11- 1ii ~rn 8 if-§. i i ~ ~ if~ i ~ ~~~ inability to understand the essence ofMarx­ mable importance. STRUCTURE ;~r = ><~ 2. < ~ <

Before the revolutionary victory, women were objects-mere bed decorations. After the revolution this changed. Women began to organize massively, working to change the conditions of their lives and to free themselves. Tete Puebla Marianas in Combat

The change in a historical epoch can always be determined by the progress of women toward freedom .... The degree of emancipation of woman is the natural measure ofgeneral emancipation. Karl Marx The Holy Family

Brigadier General Tete Puebla, the high­ est-ranking woman in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces and a Hero ofthe Cuban Revo­ lution, joined the struggle to overthrow the bloody U.S.-backed dictatorship ofFulgencio Batista in 1956, when she was fifteen years courtesy old. Marianas in Combat is her story-from Left, Brigadier General Tete Puebla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. Above, clandestine action in the small town ofYara Mariana Grajales Platoon during Liberty Caravan, January 1959. Puebla is standing in in the foothills of eastern Cuba's Sierra back row, center. "Before the revolutionary victory, women were objects, mere bed deco­ Maestra mountains, to officer in the victori­ rations. After the revolution, women began to organize massively. The revolution sought ous Rebel Army's first all-women's platoon, to incorporate women into the struggle and into the workforce." to protagonist in and defender of the social and economic transformation of Cuba. working people and their government refused last half century can be opened only as On January 1, 1959, barely two years af­ to back down. The revolution deepened and working people in their majority act to break ter the initiation of the revolutionary war, grew stronger in the face ofU.S.-organized the stranglehold of the propertied classes, Batista's army disintegrated in face of the and -financed sabotage, subversion, assassi­ the beneficiaries of the second-class status rapidly advancing forces of the Rebel Army nation plots, and countless acts of murder­ of women. And we see why a revolutionary and the spreading popular insurrection and ous terrorism directed at the population. In cadre committed to advancing women's general strike called by the July 26 Move­ April 1961, in less than seventy-two hours equality is decisive to reaching that goal. ment. The dictator and his closest entourage of intense combat, a full-scale U .S.-orches­ of murderers and thieves fled Cuba. What trated mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs millions of Cubans came to proudly call was crushed by the determined response of Some eight years after the triumph ovtr "The First Free Territory of the Americas" the popular militias and revolutionary police Batista, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, was born. and armed forces. The victory at Playa Giron, addressing a plenary meeting of the Fed­ The new revolutionary power, respond­ as the battle is known in Cuba, marked a de­ eration of Cuban Women in December 1966, ing to spreading mobilizations of working working. Onerous rents, telephone charges, cisive turning point in the revolution. drew attention to the number of women who people, set out to change the living and electricity rates, and other utility fees had From these years of titanic class struggle, were shouldering weighty and challenging working conditions of ordinary Cubans. In been slashed. Public education and health the first socialist revolution in the Western new tasks in agricultural programs where doing so they ignored the supposedly inher­ care had been expanded to all social layers Hemisphere emerged. widespread social prejudices would previ­ ent prerogatives of wealthy U.S. families in Cuba. Racial discrimination in employ­ ously have prevented them from assuming and their retainers in Cuba who decades In the pages that follow we meet some of ment and public activities had been out­ leadership responsibilities. Among their earlier had taken control of the island lawed. The brothels and casinos built for the the ordinary women and men-many, like nation's lucrative sugar plantations, cattle pleasure of the imperialist lords and laddies ranches, nickel reserves, oil refineries, rail­ had been closed. And hundreds of thousands roads, utilities monopolies, and banks. of workers and peasants, especially the Within a few months' time, the first ele­ youth, had poured into the newly created ments of a more equitable social order had revolutionary militias to arm and train them­ been established. A sweeping land reform selves to defend their gains. program had recognized the title of 100,000 As Washington's antagonism to this popu­ peasant families to the land they had been lar and patriotic course sharpened, Cuban

Foreword by Juan Almeida Reprinted below is the foreword by Com­ mander of the Revolution Juan Almeida to Marianas in Combat: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women~ Platoon in Cuba~ Revolution­ ary War, 1956-58. Almeida is the president ofthe Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolu­ tion, an organization of Cuban revolutionary fighters of many generations, from the revolution­ ary war against the U.S.-backed Batista dictator­ ship in the 1950s to international missions around the world. Bohemia Havana, November 19,2002 Protest in Santiago de Cuba against police murder of 15-year-old William Soler on Year of the Heroes Imprisoned by the Empire Jan. 2, 1957. Sign reads, "Stop the murder of our children. Cuban mothers.'' After reading the valuable book based on the in- terview with our comrade in struggle, Brigadier • · Tete Puebla, still in their teens at the time­ ranks, as she describes in these pages, was General Delsa Esther "Tete" Puebla Vittres, I believe it's best not to add woi-ds by way who made this history. We see how they soon to be Tete Puebla. "This is one of the ofa preface, but rathet to let Tete's straightforward answers help readers discover for were themselves transformed in the course great lessons," Castro noted, themselves her humanism. her humble origin, her revolutionary- fiber, and to appreci­ of the struggle. We begin to understand the one of the greatest victories over ate more deeply the generosity and firmness of our revolution. class trajectory that for more than forty years prejudices that have existed, not just She says she has liVed the revolution so intensely that she cannot separate it from her has enabled Cuba's working people to hold for decades or centuries, but for mil­ life. We might add that through her account the reader will learn to admi~e Tete and U.S. imperialism at bay as they defend their lennia. We refer to the prejudice that have a better understanding <>f the justice <>four cause. course, building a new society based oneco­ all a woman was capable of was to Juan Almeida Bosque nomic and social relations that are the ne­ scrub dishes, wash and iron clothes, President ofthe National Directorate gation of the dog-eat-dog realities of capi­ cook, keep house, and bear children Association ofCombatants talism. [Applause and shouts ]-an age-old ofthe Cuban Revolution We see how the door to advances such as prejudice that placed women in an in­ those registered by women in Cuba over the ferior position in society. In effect, she 6 The Militant December 23, 2002 did not have a productive place in so­ ciety. Such prejudices are thousands of years old and have survived through various social systems. If we're talk­ ing about capitalism, women-that is, lower-class women-were doubly exploited or doubly humiliated. A poor woman, as a part of the working class or a working-class family, was exploited simply because she was poor, because she was a worker. But in addition, even though she was herself a worker, within her own First Cuban women's antiaircraft battery on internationalist mission in Cahama, Angola, September 1988. In center in light blouse is class she was scorned and underrated. Vilma Espin, president of Federation of Cuban Women. "A country where women and men work and fight side by side is invincible." Not only was she underestimated, ex­ ploited, and scorned by the exploit­ as the war intensified. In the Rebel Army symbolize the spirit of resistance and un­ Martinez of Bohemia. ing classes, but even within her own camps of the Sierras, she relates, "what we breakable courage of the oppressed fight­ The glossary, annotation, and much of the class she was the object of innumer­ wanted more than anything was to earn the ing for their liberation the world over. editorial preparation in English was the able prejudices .... right to fight." In words that capture the de­ work of Pathfinder editor Michael Taber. If women in our country were dou­ termined struggle of women everywhere to Pathfinder editor Luis Madrid participated bly exploited, doubly humiliated in establish their equality, she notes that "we The interview printed in these pages took in the first interview with Tete Puebla and the past, then this simply means that had already proved that women could do place in Havana, Cuba, in two sessions, the was responsible for final preparation of the women in a social revolution should just about everything .... 'If women have to first on November 18,2000, and the second text in Spanish. Martin Koppel, the editor be doubly revolutionary. [Applause] take part in all the duties of the revolution,' on March 1, 2002. It was made possible of Perspectiva Mundial, participated in the And this perhaps is the explanation, we said, 'why can't we fight the same way through the support and encouragement of second interview session. or at least provides the social basis, as our men fight?"' the leadership of the Association of Com- A large team of volunteers who are part for the resolute, enthusiastic, firm, and After a major offensive by the troops of loyal support given by Cuban women the Batista regime had been defeated in the to this revolution. summer of 1958, and as the Rebel Army was This revolution has really been two preparing to launch the counteroffensive that revolutions for women; it has meant would carry them to victory, "we asked our a double liberation: as part of the ex­ commander in chief to allow us to fight arms ploited sectors of the country, and sec­ in hand. He agreed. Fidel said yes, women ond, as women, who were discrimi­ had won the right to fight with a rifle, face nated against not only as workers but to face with the enemy." also as women, in that society of ex­ The political battle waged by Fidel Castro ploitation. and those closest to him within the leader­ The attitude of Cuban women to­ ship of the Rebel Army to take on the anti­ ward the revolution corresponds to woman prejudices that were then still deeply this reality; it corresponds to what the ingrained even in some of the best combat­ revolution has meant to them .... ants, and to establish the Mariana Grajales There are two sectors in this coun­ Women's Platoon, is a measure of the cali­ try, two components of society that, ber of that revolutionary leadership. It was aside from economic reasons, have one of the most important steps taken by had other motives for sympathizing the Rebel Army command in the midst of with and feeling enthusiasm for the the war, demonstrating in practice the so­ revolution: the black population of cial course, the class course, that would con­ Cuba and the country's women. tinue to be followed by the new revolution­ ary power once victory over the dictator­ Tete Puebla's account provides a vivid ship had been won. Fidel Castro, center, with members of Mariana Grajales Platoon, Oct. 8, 1958, as they and concrete picture of this revolutionary To the men who complained-"How can were leaving on a combat mission in the plains. Puebla is immediately to left of Castro. transformation. We see what involvement in we give rifles to women when there are so the struggle meant for one young woman many men who are unarmed?"-Fidel re­ batants of the Cuban Revolution, especially of the international Pathfinder Reprint from a poor family of working people in sponded, "Because they're better soldiers its president, Commander of the Revolution Project made possible the simultaneous pub­ Oriente province-how and why she re­ than you are. They're more disciplined." The Juan Almeida, who authored the foreword lication of this book in Spanish and English. fused to accept the status quo, her hopes and Marianas proved him right, and their actions to this volume, and Brigadier General Harry They made their time and abilities available achievements, how she grew and changed helped open the way to further gains for Villegas, who is today the executive vice to translate, copy edit, format, proofread, women as the revolution advanced. president of the association. prepare photos and maps, and competently The name of the squad could not Without the assistance, perseverance, and dispatch many other tasks indispensable to have been more appropriate. The capacities of Cuban editor Iraida prepare the manuscript for press. Rebel Army unit of which Tete Puebla Aguirrechu, it would not have been possible Through the collective efforts of many, was second in command was named to bring the manuscript to completion with one more strand of the rich history of the after a heroine of Cuba's wars of in­ anything close to the quality and accuracy Cuban Revolution is now accessible to all. dependence from Spanish colonial desired and, we hope, realized. Marianas in Combat is dedicated to the rule in the nineteenth century. Special appreciation goes to Tete Puebla young people in every comer of the earth Mariana Grajales was a black woman herself for the time and attention she gener­ who today, like fifteen-year-old Tete Puebla who sent all her sons to fight for ously gave, and for the selection of irreplace­ before them, refuse to accept the brutality Cuba's freedom; eight members of her able original photos from her personal ar­ and injustice of the capitalist system that sur­ family were killed in battle. The most chives. Help in assembling the photo pages rounds them and decide to join with others prominent was the Bronze Titan, An­ was also provided by Delfin Xiques of in a disciplined fight for a better world. tonio Maceo, the legendary general of Granma and the leadership of the Federa­ Mary-Alice Waters Cuba's independence army, killed in tion of Cuban Women, as well as Manuel November 2002 battle in 1896. Her name has come to Coming soon from Pathfinder Marianas in Combat Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War Brigadier General Tete Pueblo, the highest-ranking woman in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, joined the struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956, when she was fifteen years old. This is her story-from clandestine action in the cit­ ies, to serving as an officer in the victorious Rebel Army's first all-women's unit-the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon. For nearly fifty years, her life has been inter­ twined with the fight to transform the social and eco­ nomic status of women, a course of action inseparable from Cuba's socialist revolution. Pre-publication price: $11 for Pathfinder Readers Club members (normal price $14) During 1961 literacy drive in Cuba, more than 100,000 youth, the majority of them women, joined the brigades that went into countryside to teach 1 million peasants and Available online at www.pathfinderpress.com or from bookstores, including those listed on workers to read and write. Above, literacy lesson in San Lorenzo, Sierra Maestra. page 14. Please include $3 for shipping and handling. Inset, victory rally after completion of literacy campaign. December 23, 2002 The Militant 7 Facts on INS detention of ROger Calero and the fight to free him Printed below is the fact sheet explain­ juana to an undercover cop. Faced with the ing the events behind the detention of prospect of jail, Calero copped a plea and Roger Calero. Supporters of the cam­ received a suspended 60-day sentence with paign to free Calero can use it to win oth­ three years probation. ers to the fight demanding his release from INS custody. Permanent resident for 12 years When Calero applied for permanent resi­ On December 3, Roger Calero, the as­ dency in 1989 he specifically included in­ sociate editor of Perspectiva Mundial, a formation about his conviction, which im­ Spanish-language news magazine pub­ migration officials waived in order to grant lished in New York, was returning home to him a green card giving him the right to the United States from a reporting assign­ live and work in the United States. ment in Havana, Cuba, and Guadalajara, In 2000 the INS replaced his card with Mexico. At Houston Intercontinental Air­ full written information of the 12-year-old port, Calero was seized by the Immigra­ conviction. Today, Calero, who is married tion and Naturalization Service (INS), told to a U.S. citizen, lives in Newark. New Jer­ he was denied entry to the United States, sey. and carted off to an INS jail. He now faces For the past 12 years Calero has exer­ exclusion from this country. cised his rights as a permanent resident, in­ Calero has lived in this country for the cluding most recently as a journalist for a past 17 years and has held permanent resi­ Spanish-language news magazine. INS of­ Militant/Greg McCartan dence since 1990. Besides his position as ficials are now trying to take away those Roger Calero, center, checks newly printed pages of the Militant coming off presses. an editor of Perspectiva Mundial, Calero rights. Calero was arrested by INS on his return from reporting assignment abroad. works as a staff writer for the Militant, a Prior to beginning his job as associate New York-based newsweekly. As a reporter editor of Perspectiva Mundial and staff dom on bond from an INS prison and for ies to Calero's magazine, Perspectiva he has traveled widely, both in this country writer for the Militant, Calero worked as a an immediate halt to government exclusion Mundial, 410 West Street, New York, New and in Latin America, covering labor and meat packer in Des Moines, Iowa, and then proceedings against him. He has retained York 10014. political events. in Twin Cities, Minnesota, where he par­ an attorney and is appealing for public sup­ Sign and distribute petitions demanding This attempt by the INS to exclude ticipated in a successful union-organiz­ port to press the INS to restore his rights justice for Roger Calero. Calero from the United States and deport ing drive at the Dakota Premium plant in and his freedom. Make a financial contribution to help him to Nicaragua is an attack on his rights South St. Paul. He is continuing his work Send a letter of protest to Hipolito cover rapidly mounting legal and other ex­ as a permanent resident, on his right to ex­ as a journalist from his prison cell in Texas. Acosta, District Director, Immigration and penses. Checks can be written out to the ercise his work as a journalist, and on the Naturalization Service, 126 Northpoint Political Rights Defense Fund, P.O. Box 761, rights of all. Action is needed now! You can help! Drive, Houston, TX 77060; fax: 281-77 4- Church Street Station, New York, NY I 0007. Calero and his supporters have launched Calero is fighting today to win his free- 5989; tel: 281-774-4610. Please send cop- Contributions are tax-deductible. a public campaign to win his release and the restoration of his rights. Your help is needed. Join the fight! December 3: INS detention Many immigrants face denial ofrights like Calero The INS seized Calero on December 3 BY PAUL PEDERSON panded the number of crimes for which a two children who are U.S. citizens. She at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Calero The current effort by the Immigration person can be deported to include a range faces deportation to Nigeria because she was on a one-week assignment for and Naturalization Service to exclude edi­ of misdemeanors, as minor as jumping a applied for citizenship with a shoplifting Perspectiva Mundial to report on an inter­ tor and journalist Roger Calero from the subway turnstile or shoplifting, redefining conviction on her record. In 1993 she was national conference in Havana on the Free United States on his return from a report­ them as "aggravated felonies." Another charged with shoplifting $14.99 in mer­ Trade Area of the Americas, attended by ing trip abroad is not an isolated case. 1996 law that curtailed the rights of the chandise when she tried to return some trade unionists and other delegates from foreign-born was the Anti-Terrorism and baby clothes without a receipt. Lacking ar Latin America, the United States, and Calero, the associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and a Militant staff Effective Death Penalty Act. attorney, she copped a plea and was given Canada. He then spent several days cover­ writer, has been locked up in an immigra­ The Illegal Immigration Reform law was a suspended sentence of one year proba­ ing an international student conference in made retroactive, meaning that even small tion. In 1998 she went to the INS to apply Guadalajara, Mexico, sponsored by the tion jail since he was detained at Houston's international airport December 3. infractions on a person's record that hap­ for citizenship. Her application was denied Continental Organization of Latin Ameri­ pened years ago-before the law was en­ and she was ordered deported. can and Caribbean Students. In Houston, Thousands of immigrants, including per­ manent residents like Calero, have faced a acted----could be used as the basis for de­ John Gaul was adopted from Thailand Calero was detained and then transferred portation proceedings today. at the age of five by a family in Florida. to an immigration jail run by a private com­ similar denial of their rights. Over the past decade the U.S. government has adopted a Immigrants who had been granted legal At 19 he was convicted of writing bad pany, the Corrections Corporation of residence with the 1986 nationwide am­ checks and stealing a car. He received a America. series of laws that it has used to step up attacks on the rights of working people and nesty faced losing their legal status after 20-month sentence and was deported to the 1996 law was passed if they had a con­ Thailand. Since he grew up in Florida, he Charges against Calero others born abroad. Those attacks have ac­ celerated in the past year. viction on their records. While Ia migra has does not speak Thai or have any family The immigration cops are seeking to carried out factory raids to round up and contacts in Thailand. Several anti-immigrant measures were "exclude" him--deny Calero reentry into deport undocumented workers, it has usu­ After some of the most controversial as­ passed by Congress and enacted by the the United States-and deport him to his ally not sought out permanent residents who pects in the 1996 law began to spark pub­ Clinton administration in 1996. One was native Nicaragua, based on a 1988 convic­ are in this situation. Instead, legal residents lic debate and opposition, they were modi­ the so-called Illegal Immigration Reform tion, when he was a high school student in have been victimized when they leave the fied by Supreme Court rulings in 2001. Om. and Immigrant Responsibility Act. It ex- Los Angeles, on a charge of selling mari- country and try to return; when they go to of these provisions, called "expedited re­ the INS to apply for a change in their sta­ moval," gave INS agents at a point of entry tus or some other reason; or if they are sub­ the powers to summarily deport individu­ From Pathfinder sequently arrested on a criminal charge. als-without the right to a lawyer or the Here are a few examples .of people the right to appeal before a court-if the cops FBI on Trial INS calls "criminal aliens" who have been merely "suspected" their documents were The Victory in the Socialist Workers Party Suit snared by the immigration police. not valid. Against Government Spying Another clause, known as "mandatory 40-year resident faces exclusion detention," allowed for indefinite jailing of Edited by Margaret Jayko Jose Velasquez immigrated here from immigrants who were slated for deporta­ The victory in the case fought from 1973 to 1987 "increases the Panama more than 40 years ago, became a tion but whose home country would not space for politics, expands the de facto use of the Bill of Rights, permanent resident in 1960, married, and take them back. It was modified to require increases confidence of working people that you can be political has children and grandchildren who are they be released after six months unless the and hold the deepest convictions against the government and U.S. citizens. He and his wife have oper­ government presented additional reasons to it's your right to do so and act upon them"- from the intro­ ated a small grocery store in Philadelphia keep them in jail. duction. $18.95 since the early 1980s. The immigration legislation also mandatee Twenty years ago, Velasquez was ap­ the tripling of the immigration police. Today Worker' Rights Versus proached at a party by an individual who there are 15,000 officers carrying guns and asked about buying cocaine. When he authorized to make arrests-making the INS the Secret Police pointed to someone he thought might ac­ the largest federal police force today. commodate that request, Velasquez was Larry Seigle The immigration police have also wid­ arrested, convicted, and sentenced to five ened their net. With the passage of the USA How, since the inception of the modern revolutionary years' probation. In December 1998, as Patriot Act, signed in October 2001 by workers movement in 1848, the ruling classes have Velasquez was returning home to the President George Bush, the number of bor­ responded with police spies, agents provocateurs, and United States after visiting his mother, who der cops along the Canadian border was political frame-ups. $5.00 was having hip surgery, the INS dredged tripled. up his earlier conviction, detained him, and Building on previous legislation, the Order now from www.pathfinderpress.com. Please include $3 began exclusion proceedings. USA Patriot Act, in the name of pursuing for shipping and handling. Also available from bookstores, In Atlanta, Olufolake Olaleye has been "foreign terrorists," also grants INS agents including those listed on page 14. a permanent resident since 1990 and has Continued on Page 12

8 The Militant December 23, 2002 'Militant,' 'PM' reporter fights INS exclusion Continued from front page resident for the past 12 years. In addition to Martes 10 de diciembn."l, 2 002 Pagina 3 EJ!i)ia his position as an editor for Perspectiva LOCAL Mundial, Calero works as a staff writer for the Militant, a New York-based newsweekly. As a reporter he has traveled widely, both in EIINS detiene en Houston a un this country and in Latin America, covering labor and political events. INS officials are seeking to exclude Calero on the basis of a 1988 conviction, when he was a high school student in Los pertodista residente de EE.UU. Angeles, on a charge of selling marijuana El DiaiJesUs LOpez Tapia "Esta persona est\ queriendo presen· Los cargos-~ ..,._ -.ci6n, .... to an undercover cop. Faced with the pros­ tar su caso a un juez de migraciOn para I.a policla de inmigraci6n intenta "ex· ...... _ ...... ,_ HOUSTON. TX.- R6ger Calero, nicara· poder luchar su estadia'', expres6 Aquino. cluir" a Calero -negarle el reingreso a Es· Martha Olvera, represenlante de Ia Co& pect of jail, Calero agreed to a plea bar­ guense y subdirector de Ia revista Penr "Yo sOlo puedo dedr que cuaJquier per, tados Unidos- y deportarlo a Nicaragua, su licion por Ia Dignidad y Ia Amnistia mani· gain and received a suspended 60-day sen­ pectiwl Mundial, editada en Nueva York. sona sea residente pennanente o no que pafs de origen, basandose en una senten­ fest6 que ta detenci6n de ROger calero es fue detenido en el Aeropuerto Intercun­ haya cometido un delito grave puede scr cia de 1988. cuando era estudiante de se· injusta. tence with three years probation. tinental de Houston por las autoridades de deportado a su pais de origen ., cundaria en Los Angeles, y fue acusado de "Yo estoy de acuerdo en que se cas· mlgraci6n cnando regresaha de Cuba y M& vender marihuana a un policia encubier­ tlguen a las personas cuando tienen un de­ xieo, en donde fUe a realizar tareas perio­ to. Frente a Ia posibilidad de ir a prisi6n, lito. pero cuando este delito se cometi6 en Effort to win his release on bond diloticas. Calero acept6 declararse culpable y reci­ Ia juventud y se pag6, creo que las gentes Los hechos fueron denunciados ayer bi6 una sentencia suspendida de 60 dias deben tener otra oportunidad y no juzgar. The immediate goal of the campaign is hmes. a El Dia por Ia seoiora Sarah Katz. con tn>s atios de Jibertad condicional. los toda Ia vida". seilal6 Olvera. "Ademas, to win the journalist's release on bond. He esposa de calero. La senora Katz. ciudadana estadou~ el muchacho recibi6 su tarjeta de residen· ROGER CALERO, OETENDO por el INS en ''Cuando mi esposo lleg6 al aeropuer~ nidense. explic6 que cuando su esposo so­ cia y la" autoridades de migraci6n se Ia ren­ Houstoo. has retained two attorneys, Martha Garza to el martes de Ia semana pasada. lr di· lirit6 la residencia pcnnancnte en 1989. ovaron haec dos afios y se Ia volvieron a dar; jeron que le negaban la cntn1da a Est:tdos especificamente incluy6 infonnaciOn so­ entonces ese es un error de migraci6n por­ 218-'714-5009 con copia a la revi!.1a de Ca in Houston and Claudia Slovinsky in New Umdos y lo trasladaron a una prL~:iiOn del bre su sentencia. Ia cual fue desechada que desde un principio no hubieran dejado lero. Perspectiva Mundial. 410 West Street York. Garza told Calero she expects a hear­ Servicio de Inmigraci6n y enfrenta exclu­ por los funcionarios del sen'icio de inmi­ que hubiera hecho una vida aqui y des­ New Yor. New York 10014. y por fax (212) siOn de este pais". manifest6. "R6ger, con graei6n a fin de otorgarle la ''tarjeta ver­ conectarse completamente de su pais para 924{K)4() ing within the next couple of weeks. At that quien estoy casada desdc haec un allo. ha de" que le daba el derecho de viviry traba­ luego arrancarlo y quererlo mandar otra El Fondo de !Jefensa de los Derechos time she will argue that he should be freed vi.vidoen Estados Unidos por los Ultimos 17 jar en F...stados lJnidos. En el ailo 2000 el vez'·. PoHtkos en NU€\'a York pide a Ia connmi atios y ha ostentado la resideneia pe11na INS reemplaz6 su tarjeta verde, habiendo Subray6 que las organizaciones en fa­ dad su contribuci6n fiDRncwra para ayudar by the INS, or, if the case is continued, that nente desde 1990". recibido toda la infonnaci6n pertinente a vor de los derechos de inmigrantes en a cubrir los gastos legales y dentas costos he should be released on bond. Luisa Aquino. vocera del Servieio de Ia mndena de 12 aiios atras. Houston le brindan apoyo moral a Ia esposa que se van acumulandn eon mpidez. [.l)S Jnmigraci6n y NaturalizaciOn. INS por sus Calero de 34 aftos y su esposa Sara de calero. cheques se pueden remitir al Political Calero has already begun to receive sup­ sjglas en ing!Cs, manifestO al ser entrevis­ viven ahora en Newark, Nueva Jersey y Piden al pUblico enviar tma cart.a de Rights Defense Fund. P 0. Box 761. Church tada al respecto, que no puede comentarel han contratado los servicios de un aboga· protesta a Hip6lito Acosta, director del INS St Station, New York, NT liJXJl. Estas con­ port from around the country. One of the asunto de Calero porque se h-ata de un re!:· SARAH KliTZ, CIUDADANA esladotJrjdense, do para que deflenda el caso. en Honston, al 126 Northpoint Drive, ttibuciones se pueden deducir de sus im· first backers of his release was Bill Pearson, idente pennanentc de los Estados Unidos busa! Ia-de su"""""" ROger Colero. Houston, TX. 7700J: TeL Cl8ll 7744610, Fax: puestos. president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in South St. Paul, Min­ Article on arrest of Roger Calero in December 10 issue of Houston Spanish-language daily El Dia nesota. Before his current job as an editor of Perspectiva Mundial, Calero was a mem­ with about 35 others in bunk beds," Katz ish-language daily, El Dia, thanks to sent to the INS: from the Calero family's ber of Local 789 and worked at the Dakota reported, "and the prisoners are called by Olvera's assistance. landlord; the director of the Community Premium Foods meatpacking plant, where their bunk number and the letter T or B to Education Adolescent Alliance in Los An­ he was part of a successful union-organiz­ designate whether they have a top or bot­ Permanent resident since 1990 geles County, where Calero had volunteered ing drive. Pearson sent a letter of protest to tom bunk." Calero is 804B. An increasing number of workers who in the HIV/AIDS prevention education pro­ the INS, pointing out that Calero's "co­ Katz related that on the night of his de­ are born abroad and live and work in the gram; and his probation officer. workers saw him as a person to tum to for tention, Calero first called her around 9:00 United States, like Calero, have been sub­ In 2000, INS officials renewed Calero's help. So did I. Making him leave this coun­ p.m. while being held at the airport, and jected to Washington's harassment and de­ permanent residence card, again waiving try would be a travesty of justice." that it wasn't until some three hours after portation of immigrants. The 1996 Illegal the full written record of his conviction. "It's great to get support from my former his detention that immigration officials told Immigration Reform and Immigrant Re­ For the past 12 years Calero has exer­ union president," Calero told his wife, Sa­ him he was being detained in order to be­ sponsibility Act allows cops from Ia migra cised his rights as a permanent resident, rah Katz, when he heard the news. gin "removal proceedings" against him on to seek the exclusion of individuals at the including most recently as a journalist and Katz, 30, a sewing machine operator in the basis of a prior conviction on his record. border on the basis of previous convictions associate editor of the Spanish-language Newark, New Jersey, reported in a phone "I received my last call from him that for petty offenses. The law can be applied magazine Perspectiva Mundial and staff interview from Houston that Calero was in night at 4:45 a.m., when he was being 'pro­ retroactively to cases that took place be­ writer for the Militant. good spirits and glad to know about the fight cessed' at the INS jail," Katz stated. fore it was adopted-sometimes decades Prior to working at the Spanish-language that has been launched to win his release "He told me the INS confiscated his re­ earlier (see article on immigration laws monthly, Calero worked as a meat packer from INS custody. He was also pleased to porters' tools, Perspectiva Mundial cam­ elsewhere in this issue). In addition, over at Iowa Beef Products in Perry, Iowa, and hear that the previous night, local support­ era and laptop computer with photos and the past year and a half, the harassment of then in Minnesota, where he participated ers of his right to live and work in this coun­ notes from his reporting trip." immigrants has stepped up further, such as Continued on Page 12 try raised almost $600 to help cover the Katz noted that earlier that day she had the denial of bail to immigrants branded growing costs of the defense effort. met in Houston with Martha Olvera, who "terrorism suspects." Katz was finally able to visit Calero on has led an ongoing struggle for justice in Calero has been a permanent resident December 8, five days after his arrest. Pris­ the INS killing of her brother-in-law. since 1990. When he filed his application How you can help oners at the INS prison in Houston-a pri­ Serafin Olvera, 48, was brutally beaten in 1989, he specifically included the infor­ vate jail run by the Corrections Corpora­ during an INS raid on a house in Bryan, mation about his conviction in high school An immediate response is needed tion of America-are allowed visitors for Texas, in March of last year. He was de­ on charges of selling marijuana to an un­ to win Roger Calero's release on one hour a week on Sundays, said Katz. nied medical treatment for several hours dercover cops-which immigration offi­ bond from an immigration prison The visitors and detainees are all in one and died nearly a year later. Olvera was cials waived in order to grant him a green and a halt to the government's ex­ room with no privacy and no right to touch glad to meet others fighting against INS card giving him the right to live and work clusion proceedings against him. their loved-ones other than a hello and one injustice and offered ideas on how to pub­ in the United States. Defenders of the Perspectiva goodbye kiss and one hug. licize Calero's case. Katz said she was go­ At that time, several letters of support to Mundial associate editor and Mili­ "Roger said he sleeps in a large room ing to be interviewed by the Houston Span- his application for permanent residence were tant journalist have launched a cam­ paign to press the INS to restore his rights and his freedom. These are some of the things you UFCW official: 'A travesty ofjustice' can do: • Fax protest messages to The following message was sent by Bill Calero was a member of Local 789 be­ membership of 8,000. Our members work Hipolito Acosta, District Director, Pearson, president of Local 789 of the fore beginning his current job as associ­ in grocery stores, nursing homes, and pack­ Immigration and Naturalization United Food and Commercial Workers ate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and a ing houses. Service, 126 Northpoint Drive, union in South St. Paul, Minnesota, to staff writer for the Militant. I am writing you for a very specific rea­ Houston, TX 77060. The fax num­ the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­ son. It is my understanding that you have ber is: 281-774-5989. Originals of vice in Houston, where Roger Calero is My name is Bill Pearson and I am Presi­ arrested Roger Calero. Apparently, there is the letters should be mailed to that being detained in an immigration jail, dent of UFCW Local 789. We are located discussion that he be deported. This would address. Copies should be sent to facing exclusion from the United States. in South St. Paul, Minnesota, and have a be a travesty of justice. Calero's magazine, Perspectiva I came to know Roger when he Mundial, 410 West Street, New was working in a packing plant York, NY 10014. The INS district in South St. Paul. It was the Da­ office in Houston can also be called kota Premium plant, and Roger at 281-774-4610. was an active and committed • Sign and get others to help cir­ leader in helping stabilizing the .culate petitions demanding justice workers and bring about a labor for Calero. A fact sheet and peti­ agreement. He was bright, articu­ tion are available on the Militant's late, and well read. His co-work­ web site, www.themilitant.com ers saw him as a person to tum to for help. So did I. • Write to Roger Calero, 804B, Making him leave the country File #A27 960 195, Houston Pro­ would be an injustice. I implore cessing Center, 15850 Export Plaza you, do not deport him. Allow Drive, Houston, TX 77030. him to stay and Latino workers • Contributions are urgently will be the better for it. needed to cover the substantial le­ Please feel free to contact me gal and other expenses. Checks at 651-451-6240 for a more per­ should be written out to the Politi­ sonal endorsement of his qualities. cal Rights Defense Fund, P.O. Box UFCW Local 789 Sincerely, 761, Church Street Station, New Rally of workers at Dakota Premium Foods July 20, 2000, one day before UFCW Local 789. Bill Pearson York, NY 10007. Contributions are representation vote. Calero worked in meatpacking plant and was part of organizing drive. President, UFCW Local 789 tax-deductible.

December 23, 2002 The Militant 9 Frame-up unravels in N.Y. 'jogger' rape case BY ANGEL LARISCY the youths said about the rape was wrong, including when, where and NEW YORK~ The five Harlem teenagers who were wrongly con­ how it took place. Indeed their de­ victed of the assault and rape of a scription of the location, the victim's woman jogging in Central Park more clothing and other details makes it than 13 years ago, have won a rec­ seem, in retrospect, almost as if they ommendation from Manhattan dis­ were talking about another crime," trict attorney Robert Morgenthau to the New York Times acknowledged have all of the convictions dismissed. in a December I article. Prior to his announcement the dis­ In the fall of 1989, defense law­ trict attorney asserted that he would yers fought to get the confessions make no claims of misdeeds or coer­ thrown out based on the fact that po­ cion by cops or prosecutors in the lice tactics used were coercive, case, but noted that the New York threatening and deceitful. Manhat­ police department had failed to tum tan Supreme Court Justice Thomas over information about a similar at­ Galligan, who presided over the tack on a woman in Central Park two case, rejected all the arguments and declared that the cops and prosecu­ days before the jogger was raped. Above, rPI

BY PATRICK O'NEILL African. The racial discrimination practiced by The London-based Anglo-American SouthAfrica's mining bosses has been spot­ group and other capitalist interests in South lighted in a long-running debate on recently Africa have for decades benefited from their passed legislation that transfers rights to stranglehold over these deposits. Even with mineral deposits from private companies to the abolition of apartheid-era laws that the government. Over the past two years the barred blacks from owning or managing big mining capitalists have waged a mines--operated with cheap black labor­ rearguard campaign to tone down the bill's this monopoly has made it almost impos­ provisions, and to defang an associated char­ sible for would-be black businessmen to get ter for "black empowerment" in the indus­ into the industry. try. With gold and other precious metals play­ Almost a decade after the first election ing an increasing role as refuges for inves­ of a South African government on the basis tors in a period of financial instability and of "one person, one vote" and the official economic decline, the stakes go beyond Militant/Margrethe Siem end of apartheid, the legacy of that brutal South Africa into the major imperialist pow­ Gold miners in mine near Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1990. Mining bosses reaped system "still defines the mining sector in this ers. huge profits under apartheid-era superexploitation of black labor. Proposals to tackle country," stated the Congress of South Af­ Dubbed the Mineral and Petroleum Re­ racist discrimination still rife in the industry have sparked opposition among capitalists. rican Trade Unions (COSATU) in a June 9 sources Development Bill, the legislation statement supporting the bill. "Highly con­ was signed into law by President Thabo centrated ownership patterns have brought Mbeki on October 4. It transfers ownership can Mining Industry. tablish measures for improving housing, huge wealth to a small number of compa­ of mineral deposits to the government, en­ When government MPs first floated the including the upgrading of hostels [and] nies, with profits accumulated on the back abling it to lease mining rights to a greater charter they suggested that new mining op­ conversion of hostels to family units." of the exploitation of mine workers over variety of companies, including those that erations should be 51 percent black-owned It was in the mines that hostels for male more than a century." incorporate black investors. Successful bid­ within 10 years and that black-run groups migrant workers were first introduced by "Even today," said the union federation, ders will pay royalties in return for 30-year should own up to 30 percent of the mining the apartheid regime, along with the intro­ "mineworkers live in abysmal conditions mining leases. To qualify they have to pro­ industry. duction of"passes" that placed black work­ and are subjected to unhealthy and unsafe vide evidence that they are working with After furious objections from mine own­ ers at the mercy of police and other authori­ working conditions underground." "black partners." ers and major companies, government min­ ties. South Africa boasts the world's biggest Mbeki assured the companies that they isters described such figures as a "negotiat­ The mining companies have for the most deposits of gold, platinum, and chromium. would receive "fair market value" for any ing position," and affirmed that they would part resigned themselves to the passage of The first two account for around 20 percent assets appropriated by the government. not nationalize the industry. the bill and the charter, concentrating their of the country's exports. The country's ter­ The charter's final version, which was efforts on press amendments on the govern­ rain also contains substantial deposits of Bill meets opposition from capitalists hammered out in government-employer ment. Barry Davison, the chief executive of diamonds, manganese, copper, and other The first draft of the legislation-whose negotiations, declares its aim to be "the pur­ Anglo American Platinum Corp. and presi­ minerals. The mining industry employs provisions bring SouthAfrican legislation "in suit of a shared vision of a globally com­ dent of the country's Chamber of Mines, roughly 500,000 people in a total popula­ line with standards in the rest of the world," petitive mining industry." called the law a "very satisfactory compro­ tion of 44 million, 75 percent of which is said COSATU-met widespread opposition Without prescribing quotas to fulfill or mise." from the mining capitalists when it was first penalties for noncompliance, it says that introduced. They argued that it "violated companies that undertake to meet its provi­ Regime of the past property rights" and would "undermine the sions shall "aspire to 40 percent" participa­ A commentary in the liberal Johan­ AIDS hits miners confidence of international investors." tion of "historically disadvantaged South nesburg-based Mail and Guardian stated, Al()ng :with unsafe working condi­ The bosses reserved special criticism for Africans" in management of the industry "All the acrimony around the Minerals and .tions andlow wages..bl~kmine work- . early versions of an associated document within five years. Petroleum Resources Development Bill · ers bave to contend with a blight of dealing more directly with the industry's The empowerment charter hints at the liv­ should not obscure one central fact-there more recent vintage: the HIV/Aids color bar, the Broad-Based Socio-Economic ing conditions endured by many black min­ was no way a majority-rule South Africa pandemic. The country's largest gold Empowerment Charter for the South Afri- ers, urging companies to "undertake to es- Continued on Page 15 producer, Anglo-Gold-number two in .·~. WQrlQ..~$ aml9~ that be~ ..Weent5~1ltanc.t3opercentbfits • 40,000 emplo~s are HIV·positive. Rightists carry out bombings in South Africa

· j ••..••Jn •·~~e •. :AP:&lo~Ametican ~taTted · · ·diilg antirettmir~ ~ BY T.J. FIGUEROA Bronkhorstspruit. tural rights," suggested the bombings were ·.in. u.Ucl~Wflvetnber. JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-A At the end of November, bombs put the the result of"Afrikaner alienation." •.·. . .~ll·~~. rightist outfit calling itself the Boeremag main bridge linking the provinces of East­ In an op-ed article in Business Day, pub­ ~~behitl4~ ...... (Boer Force) has claimed responsibility for em Cape and KwaZulu-Natal out of com­ lished in Johannesburg, Dan Roodt, de­ .....·~j$~j)(}~ay~t',',' ', ;, o,' '<''I'- -Y ',',, ,,'/';,'(':<'~ ' 'OV ', thoroughly frustrated by the successes we ality, particularly in workplaces and schools have achieved in nation building, reconcili­ in urban areas. That reality exists alongside ation, and democratic transformation." another one: the frequent racist brutality meted out by, in particular, some white farm­ Grieving for endangered privileges ers and the cops. Right-wing currents have used the pub­ Sections of the police collaborate with the licity around the bombings to press their ultraright. This is also true of the army of­ claim that Afrikaner identity is endangered ficer corps. Among those arrested for alleg­ by the policies of the post-apartheid gov­ edly plotting against the government are ernment led by theANC, including steps to several army officers, along with at least one put Afrikaans-the language of the apart­ former cop and several farmers. The makeup heid state--onto an equal footing with Af­ of the military ranks, meanwhile, is under­ rican languages as well as English. going a relatively rapid transformation: the The Group of 63, a group of academics army now consists of 45,300 blacks and and authors campaigning for Afrikaner "cui- 15,000 whites. December 23, 2002 The Militant 11 Many immigrants face denial of rights like detained reporter

Continued from Page 8 security fences, and checkpoints have taken more powers to wiretap, conduct searches, a bloody toll, with record numbers of im­ employ new "monitoring" technology, and migrants dying while trying to enter the detain noncitizens deemed "terrorism sus­ country in the past several years. An Au­ pects" for up to six months without charges. gust report put the death toll at 231 along The Border Patrol has also expanded its the U.S. side of the Mexican border for the random checkpoints, which are already rou­ first eight months of this year alone. At least tinely conducted near the U.S.-Mexico bor­ 2,000 people have died trying to enter the der, to northern areas such as state highways U.S. since 1994. in Michigan, where INS cops randomly stop and search cars under the guise of looking Increase in immigrants behind bars for undocumented workers. With the step-up in INS arrests, the im­ The INS has also stepped up its raids at migrant prison population has rapidly in­ airports, rounding up airport workers ac­ creased, and the construction of immigra­ cused of posing "security" problems such tion prisons has boomed. as a police record. According to a Human Rights Watch In addition, the Social Security Adminis­ 2001 report, the number of immigrants held in detention by the INS rose from an aver­ October 20 march of 500 in Houston protesting police "security" sweep at airport tration has so far this year sent 7 million against undocumented workers. Cops arrested and indicted more than 140 workers. "no match" letters to 800,000 businesses, age of 6,700 per day in 1995 to a record informing employers that certain employ­ 20,000 per day in September 2000. ees have Social Security numbers that don't Today the INS operates nine detention await possible deportation. America, an expanding company that brags match official records. An estimated centers around the country. It also rents an­ The "Houston Processing Center," where of being "the sixth-largest corrections sys­ 100,000 workers may have lost their jobs other seven privately run prisons. And be­ Roger Calero is currently being held, is one tem in the country, just behind Texas, Cali­ as a result of these intimidation tactics. cause of the overflowing numbers, it is us­ of these privately operated jails. It is man­ fornia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, New The increased number of border cops, ing county jails to hold thousands more who aged by the Corrections Corporation of York, and Florida." -MILITANT Venezuela: 01ass protest opposes bosses' strike Continued from Page 3 problems, going back to what we had be­ ezuela to describe the pro-imperialist oppo­ LABOR ceeded in closing 40 percent of such estab­ fore 1998 will take away any hope for a sition. "We need a radical change." lishments in these areas. Even the Associ­ better future, any hope to get rid of the sla­ Tomas Blanca, a fisherman in Cumana, the FORUMS- ated Press reported December 2 that "while very to the rich." capital of Sucre state, made a similar point many shops were shuttered, Caracas' streets In a December 1 telephone interview, in a December 3 telephone interview. "The NEW JERSEY bustled with pedestrians, cars crawled Armando Serpa, a farmer in San Carlos, credits to small fishermen laid out in the Law Newark through traffic, and cafeterias, shoe stores pointed to some of the problems Yaerte re­ on Fishing and promised by the government United Airlines Bosses Intensify Takeback and video shops were open for business." ferred to. "The Supreme Court declared four have not materialized a year later," he said. Demands on Workers. Fri., Dec. 13,7:30 p.m. In most rural areas of the country, however, articles of the Law of Land unconstitutional "The big companies still hold economic 168 Bloomfield Ave., 2nd floor. Donation: $5. the strike was a non-event." about two weeks ago," he said. "One of them power and have their people everywhere in Tel: (973) 481-0077. In short, their strike was a failure, that's is Article 90, which allows expropriation of the government. We support Chavez because why they stepped up their disruptions in the large idle estates and distribution of those he took our side, but we need action." NEW YORK oil industry," Nellie Yaerte said. lands to farmers like us. The government is Blanca's organization, the National Garment District Faced with this situation, and divisions appealing it. But this shows that the courts Bolivarian Command ofArtisan Fishermen, Release Roger Calero! Protest Attacks on within the opposition, Washington has not and many institutions are filled with the is planning a nationwide meeting in Caracas Immigrant Rights. Speaker: Martin Koppel, taken as openly aggressive a stance against 'squalid ones,"' the term often used in Ven- in January to press their demands, he said. editor, the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. the Chavez government as it did in April Fri., Dec. 13. Program, 7:30p.m.; dinner, 6:30 when a similar strike preceded the U.S.­ p.m. 545 8th Ave., 14thjloor. Donation: $5 pro­ backed coup. "We call on all sides to reject gram, $5 dinner. Tel: (212) 695-7358. violence, act responsibly, continue to support INS detains 'Militant' reporter Upper Manhattan the dialogue process, and respect constitu­ Release Roger Calero! Protest Attacks on tional processes," said U.S. State Department Continued from Page 9 ness work related to the paper's circulation Immigrant Rights. Speaker: John Studer, Po­ spokesman Richard Boucher December 6. in the successful union-organizing drive at and distribution. litical Rights Defense Fund. Fri., Dec. 13. Pro­ the Dakota Premium Foods plant in South "We produced a fact sheet and petition to gram, 7:30p.m.; dinner, 6:30p.m. 599 W 187 Aspirations of working people St., 2nd floor. Donation: program $5, dinner $5. St. Paul. During this time he also served as distribute broadly to all those who will be Tel: (212) 740-4611. The economic downturn in Venezuela, a field correspondent for Perspectiva outraged by the INS effort to exclude Calero which the opposition has tried to blame on Mundial and the Militant. and who will identify with his right to work the government, has continued to take its While fighting the INS attack on his right as a journalist," said Koppel. "Supporters OHIO toll on working people. The country's gross to live and work in the United States, Calero in cities across the country have already Cleveland national product contracted by 6.4 percent has continued his work as a journalist from begun raising thousands of dollars towards The Crisis of Capitalism in South America: the first nine months of this year, unemploy­ behind prison walls in Texas. what will be needed to cover legal and other The Challenge of Building Working-Class ment stands at 17 percent, and inflation at expenses. Leadership. Fri., Dec. 20, 7:30p.m. 110/8 30 percent. Despite this, opposition among Public campaign launched The Political Rights Defense Fund, a Lorain Ave. Tel: (216) 688-1190. working people to efforts to oust the presi­ Perspectiva Mundial and Militant editor foundation that has backed important po­ dent has stiffened. "They can carry a coup Martin Koppel explained that Calero's col­ litical rights campaigns for decades, has PENNSYLVANIA against Chavez. But then we come: those leagues on the New York-based periodicals agreed to help raise the funds for this cam­ Hazleton of us who are with Chavez," Alexander have initiated the campaign to win his re­ paign. Malcolm X Talks to Young People: "You Are Carrizo, a shoe repairman, told the Associ­ lease. Calero is not only the associate edi­ "We urge as many people as possible to Living at a Time of Revolution." Speaker: ated Press November 30. "There is going to tor of the Spanish-language monthly but send a letter to the INS district office in Hous­ Ma'mud Shirvani. Sat., Dec. 21, 7:30p.m. 69N be a civil war here if they topple Chavez." carries out many responsibilities on the Mili­ ton urging them to release Calero and stop Wyoming St. Donation: $5. Tel: (570) 454-8320. Nellie Yaerte pointed out that "with all the tant, from writing regular articles to busi- their efforts to exclude him," Koppel said. -LETTERS New York 'budget crisis' in your December 16 editorial on mand at this time? health system of revolutionary The fact that the rate of infection The recent articles about the the assault by the bosses and their Don Gurewitz Cuba. Ana Morales Varela, a Cu­ ofHIV today stands at 0.01 percent fraudulent "budget crisis" in New government on the United Airlines Cambridge, Massachusetts ban doctor who has taken part in in Cuba is another fact that will York City and by extension munici­ workers. You counterpose to the internationalist medical missions in never be mentioned in the pages of palities and states across the coun­ bosses' "solutions" a series of de­ Cuba's AIDS programs African countries like Guinea and the New York Times. try have been excellent, as have the mands that address the needs of the Two prominent ruling-class fig­ Guinea-Bisseau, astonished audi­ Seth Dellinger articles regarding the underfunding United workers and the working ures, Bill Gates of Microsoft and ences in the United States during a New York, New York of pension schemes in corporations class as a whole. But you do not former president William Clinton, recent speaking tour here with Vic­ and states. mention taking United, and the en­ have recently written editorials in tor Dreke, a long-time cadre of the Share paper with others As far as I know no one else is tire industry, out of the hands of the the New York Times on AIDS treat­ Cuban Revolution, with the facts I'd like to take the time to say I covering this "slow-moving hurri­ capitalist owners. ment programs in "developing" about Cuba's approach to AIDS and really enjoy your paper. I try to cane" like the reporters at the Mili­ With the entire airline industry in countries. Gates's foundation is fo­ other medical questions. She noted share it with others in here so they tant. Please, keep up the excellent crisis, virtually every major airline cused on doing work in India, while that Fidel Castro's speech, "History can get a different view. work. Indeed, I think these critical bankrupt or on the verge of bank­ Clinton says "my foundation has Will Absolve Me" in 1953, listed A prisoner questions for the survival of work­ ruptcy, and the bosses and their begun signing agreements with de­ all the major questions of develop­ Rosharon, Texas ing people may even warrant a pam­ government savagely assaulting the veloping nations, including ment that had to be addressed in The letters column is an open phlet or small book. Keep up the wages and working conditions of Rwanda, Mozambique and the 15 Cuba and that, since the forum for all viewpoints on sub­ demystifying. the workers in this industry, states in the Caribbean Commu­ revolution's triumph in 1959, jects ofinterest to working people. Neil Callender wouldn't this be an appropriate and nity." Cuba's leadership has led the Cu­ Please keep your letters brief. Cambridge, Massachusetts ideal time to propagandize for the Not surprisingly, neither Clinton ban people to tackling the majority Where necessary they will be solution of "nationalization under or Gates makes any mention of the of these questions-and yet they are abridged. Please indicate if you Nationalize airline industry workers' control"? Is there some most successful program to com­ not satisfied and continue to press prefer that your initials be used I was puzzled by one omission reason not to put forward this de- bat AIDS in the world, that of the ahead. rather than your full name. 12 The Militant December 23, 2002 -GREAT SOCIE1Y------'Labor' gov't?-The Times of more picky about whom they hire More than a few getting the number is a few short of triple. couples."-News item. London found that a third of nurses as former white collar employees shafted-A study found that New They're jammed into big, open in the national health plan held sec­ vie for seasonal jobs."-Business England customers are paying too dorms, with nothing to do. There is some good news-What ond jobs. A further study found that section, Los Angeles Times. much for milk. Unspecified "retail­ with our emphasis on widespread most of them said they did so to ers," the report says, are making a Bon Voyage, doc-Passengers on lack of food, we should give this supplement their income. Purrs like a kitten-"You can fortune but little gets to dairy farm­ a third Florida Carnival cruise liner matter some balance. A generous find some very good people in ers. The news service, at least, ne­ have been slammed by a virulent crop oftruffies will hold the current these times."-Wal-Mart chain glects to mention which "retail­ intestinal infection. William Toth, a price under last year's price of spokesperson. ers"-the giant chains or the mom state medical official, said such out­ $3,300 a pound. And even that's not 'n pop groceries. breaks are not new and might even a fair picture. We've never seen, no · Great for barbeques-Workers be in decline. Asked ifhe would take less eaten, a truffle. But we're as­ thinning down trees in an area near Why not open the gates?­ a trip himself, he replied, "Sure." sured you don't have to buy a pound. Los Alamos laboratory in New Conditions at the Alabama prison They're available by the ounce and Mexico were told to avoid certain for women are so outrageous that a The sane society-"The Su­ perhaps even by the gram. areas near the site where the first judge-fearful of "a ticking time preme Court took up a potential atomic bomb was built. A spokes­ bomb"---ordered a four-week dead­ landmark case for the gay rights Beat xmas rush-Please don't person said it was a "precaution" line in preparing an improvement movement, agreeing to decide wait until the last minute to send Time to rejoice-"Laid-off for workers to avoid such areas and plan. Built in the 1940s, the peni­ whether the Constitution permits gift-related clippings. Send to Great workers swell pool of laid off ap­ also assured there was no risk to tentiary was designed to hold a states to enforce anti-sodomy laws Society, Pathfinder, 4229 S. Central plicants-Retailers say they can be recreational users. maximum of 384 inmates. Today exclusively against same-sex Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90011. Algerians force Ottawa to hold off deportations

BY SEBASTIEN DESAUTELS 1 order to counter Ottawa's control of the AND MICHEL PRAIRIE 11'1 borders to discriminate against French­ MONTREAL-After a campaign of lt\i speaking immigrants. weekly vigils and other protests, hundreds The Quebec government has once before of refugees from Algeria won a victory Oc­ used its power to select immigrants in the tober 30, when the Canadian government ''(···.' ~ framework of a struggle by refugees. In announced that it would lift the immediate ' 1998 it intervened in the same way in the threat of deportation that it has held over case of dozens of Chilean refugees threat­ them since April. ened with deportation by Ottawa. Some of Among the participating organizations at them went on a hunger strike for 3 8 days the rally was the Non-Status Refugees Ac­ and occupied a Montreal church for several tion Committee (CASS), which has played weeks to call attention to their situation. a prominent role in the ongoing protests. Meanwhile, the Canadian Minister of While welcoming the decision, which is part Justice has made it known that he may soon of an agreement between the government decide on the deportation of two Basque in Ottawa and the Quebec provincial gov­ activists held in prison in Montreal since ernment in Quebec City, CASS spokes­ June 6, 2001. The Spanish government has people have also pointed out its limitations. demanded their extradition. The fight would not end with this partial Gorka Perea Salazar, 28, and Eduardo success, marchers on November 9 told the Plagado Perez, 30, were condemned in Militant. "We will continue our struggle to Spain to six and seven years in prison for get justice for all the Algerians who don't arson. Since their arrival in Quebec in 1997 have legal status," said Mohamed Cherfi. Militant/Grant Hargrave they have maintained that their confessions The refugees and their supporters Montreal protest November 9 to demand justice for Algerian refugees were made under torture. The Basque Pris­ launched the campaign following the deci­ oners Support Committee has campaigned sion seven months earlier by Denis Coderre, collected thousands of signatures on a peti­ who wish to settle in the province. This was since their arrest for their release and for Canada's Minister oflmmigration and Citi­ tion opposing the deportations and the lift­ won as a result of the struggles by the the granting of political refugee status. zenship, to end an April 1997 moratorium ing of the moratorium, and demanding that French-speaking Quebecois against their · on the deportation of those Algerians not official refugee status be granted. national oppression· during the 1960s and Sebastien Desautels is a sewing machine Tecognized by the government as refugees. On October 20, two of the Algerian refu­ '70s,· At that time Quebec fighters demanded operator in Montreal and a member of the The moratorium, which was similar to ones gees, Yahout Seddiki and Mourad greater provincial control of immigration in Young Socialists. applying to immigrants from Afghanistan, Bourouisa, responded to an order to present the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and themselves at the airport for deportation by Rwanda, had protected the Algerian citizens seeking refuge in a church in the majority -25 AND 50 YEARS AGO from summary eviction from the country. Black neighborhood of Little Burgundy. On The immigrants originally sought asylum top of their deportation order, ministry offi­ :UCIMS in Canada from the civil war that has rav­ cials had declared that they would hold the THE MILITANT aged their country since the beginning of couple's Canadian-born son in the country THE MILITANT PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE the 1990s. The Canadian government re­ if they were unable to obtain the necessary A SOCIAUSJ NfWSWfflllY/I'UIUSHE.O 1H 1Mf tNJf..ISll Of fMt WOIIUNG I'EOI>ll ~EW YORK, NY FIVF. ('5) C:F.:.ITS fused the majority of their applications for documents from the Algerian government refugee status. At the same time it estab­ authorizing him to travel with his parents. lished the moratorium on the deportations Seddiki and Bourouisa's action, which December 23, 1977 December 22, 1952 of those who had exhausted all appeals pro­ was covered by the media across Canada, ATLANTA-By noon 8,000 to 10,000 In the most powerful blow for civil liber­ cedures. helped to lay bare the human consequences tractors driven by Georgia farmers had ties struck for a long time inAmerica, a com­ Ottawa justified its lifting of this protec­ ofthe Canadian government's immigration jammed the state capital. The Atlanta sta­ mittee of more than 190 prominent labor, tion by saying that the situation in Algeria policies. dium parking lot was full, and the tractors civic, educational, and religious leaders in had improved. The decision followed by a Amid the public debate sparked by their were backed up, five abreast, for miles. Michigan today issued a scathing denuncia­ few days a trip to Algeria by Prime Minis­ protest, the Quebec government proposed The farmers' protest was typical of the tion of the Trucks "Police-State" Law as ter Jean Chretien to negotiate commercial to the federal government the procedure to many demonstrations organized by the "one of the most undemocratic legislative agreements between the two countries. "resolve" the situation of the Algerian refu­ American Agricultural Movement in scores acts in the history of our state." Since that time the refugees have orga­ gees-a proposal that Coderre accepted. of cities across the country during the week. The eight temporary officers who head the nized, rain or shine, weekly vigils in front According to immigrant rights attorney At the rally on the Georgia capitol steps newly-formed Committee are the Rev. I. Paul of the Canadian Immigration office in Noel St.Pierre,the suspension of ongoing 3,000 farmers and their families huddled in Taylor, St. Matthews Methodist Church, Montreal, held several press conferences deportation procedures is the first of three the twenty-two degree weather. They wore chairman; Kenneth E. Boulding, Professor and demonstrations, and taken the opportu­ aspects to the agreement. In the second, blue and red caps carrying the slogan "We of Economics, University of Michigan; nity to speak wherever they were invited. Ottawa will forward to the Quebec authori­ support agriculture strike." They cheered Charles E. Lockwood, attorney for the Con­ ties all immigration applications made on speakers demanding the U.S. Department sumers Union; and Rev. Robert Bradby, Campaign wins backing so-called "humanitarian" grounds by Alge­ of Agriculture set 100 percent parity for Greater King Solomon Baptist Church, all Speakers at the November 9 rally in­ rian refugees whose demand for asylum had farm prices. vice-chairmen; Ernest Mazey, Executive cluded representatives from the Montreal been rejected by the federal government. Signs mounted on the tractors reflected Board Member, Briggs Local 212 of the Central Council of the Confederation of Thirdly, the Quebec government has stated the farmers' sentiments: "To hell with the United Auto Workers, secretary-treasurer; National Trade Unions, the Teachers' Na­ that it will give these applications "positive Farm Bureau"; "100 percent parity or farm­ andAl Barbour, Secretary-Treasurer, Wayne tional Federation of the CSN, the Quebec and accelerated" consideration. ers must strike"; "If elections were held to­ County (Detroit) CIO Council; Edgar Currie, Women's Federation, among other organi­ Aside from the fact that the agreement day would Jimmy win? Hell no!" A sign on Michigan legislator; and Helen Moore zations. Supporters of the refugees have also applies only to refugees inside Quebec, another tractor read, "The banks own them, Polaner, vice-president of the Michigan State CASS spokespeople have also demanded we drive them." Federation of Labor, all trustees. that it cover 32 refugees whom the Cana­ One rally speaker said he was sorry farm­ In their statement, the spokesmen for the In New International no. 6 dian government admits to having forced ers had to resort to public protests. "But we Committee explained that the Trucks Act sets to leave the country between April 5 and have to," he added. "I've sat back and up a vague defmition of a "communist front Land, October 30. watched the giant corporations push the in­ organization" and requires members of or­ The second labor, They also explain that the evaluation by dependent farmer back. They are taking over ganizations so designated by the state attor­ assassination., of and the Quebec of the immigration applications the land. Consumers haven't begun to see ney general to register with the state police Maurice__ Bishop Canadian will be done case by case. If Quebec ap­ what high prices are, if this continues." and be fingerprinted, subject to harsh prison Revolution plies its usual immigration criteria the re­ "All we are doing is expressing our opin­ sentences for violations. Certain sections of sult, they say, will be the rejection of many. ion," said another farmer, Lindsey Thomas. the law are aimed especially at union labor. Also: One month after the announcement of the "In the past decade we've seen all kinds of "The first organization against which the The Second agreement, the Quebec government has not groups stand up and demand their rights; Trucks Acts has been applied is the Social­ Assassination of yet announced its selection criteria. Finally, it's time the farmer did, too. Our little 4 per­ ist Workers Party," states the committee. Maurice Bishop say the refugees, the agreement does not cent [of the population] can bring the big "Without any kind of hearing, the attorney by Steve Clark affect Algerians who arrive in Canada af­ agriculture business to a halt." general arbitrarily declared the Socialist $15.00 ter AprilS. Placards announced support from Team­ Workers Party 'subversive under the mean­ Order from www.pathfinderpress.com The initiative by the Quebec government sters Local 528 whose members transport ing of the Act' and removed it from the was based on its power to select immigrants farm produce. Michigan ballot." December 23, 2002 The Militant 13 Black soldiers played key role in U.S. Civil War Printed below are excerpts from Blacks to recognize the South. in America's Wars by Robert Mullen, one Once the decision was of Pathfinder's Books of the Month for made to permit the enlistment December. The excerpts highlight the of Blacks in the army, Black revolutionary role played by Black troops abolitionists like Frederick in the Union Army in the Civil War. Copy­ Douglass and Martin Delany right © 1973 by Pathfinder Press, re­ began to act as recruiting printed by permission. Subheadings are agents for the Union army in by the Militant. the North, holding rallies to enlistAfro-Americans. Doug­ BY ROBERT MULLEN lass urged his fellow Blacks to The Emancipation Proclamation of Janu­ "fly to arms, and smite with ary 1, 1863, which freed all slaves in the rebel death the power that would states and stipulated that freed slaves should bury the government and your be received into the armed forces of the liberty in the same hopeless grave." It was better to die free than to live as slaves, he said .... In January 1863 [the War BOOKS OF Department] authorized Mas­ sachusetts to raise two Black regiments, the first officially THE MONTH authorized Black units. Even­ tually nearly 200,000 Black troops were to serve in the United States, indicated that Lincoln had ac­ Union army, and another Troops in the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment attack Confederate forces in Ft. Wagner, South cepted the proposition that the North could 300,000 served as army labor­ Carolina. Some 500,000 Blacks served in Union army as troops, laborers, spies, and helpers, playing only win the war by destroying the slave base ers, spies, servants, and help­ a revolutionary role in defeating the slaveholders' rebellion and winning the Civil War. of the Confederate States. The Emancipation ers. Lincoln admitted that Proclamation was issued for another reason their participation was essential to the vic­ into battle. But Black troops were also, as money, and no training, Blacks found that as well. The British ruling class had been vir­ tory in the war. W.E.B. DuBois pointed out, "repeatedly and they had exchanged legal slavery for eco­ tually unanimous in its support for the Con­ Eventually there were 154 Black regi­ deliberately used as shock troops, when there nomic slavery. When the government re­ federacy, seeing the war as a war between ments in the army, including 140 infantry was little or no hope of success." neged on its promise of forty acres and a the Southern agricultural free-traders and the units. They saw action in 198 battles and mule, Blacks found themselves without the Northern industrial high-tariff forces. Free­ skirmishes and suffered 68,178 fatalities on Integration in navy during war economic resources to begin as small farm­ trade Britain, wanting access for its indus­ the battlefield in the course of the war. Black seamen comprised one-quarter of ers and were forced into the status of agri­ trial goods in the American market, naturally Of the nearly 200,000 Black troops to the sailors in the Union fleet. Of the 118,044 cultural laborers or sharecroppers. Dis­ sided with the South against its Northern ri­ take part, 93,000 came from the slave states enlistments during the Civil War, 29,511 placed and deserted by the very Union val in this conflict and, in 1862, seemed about that had seceded, about 40,000 came from were Blacks. Some of the ships in the fleet forces they had aided, Blacks found, as to recognize the Confederacy. the border slave states, and the remainder were manned by predominantly Black Addison Gayle points out, that their fight The Emancipation Proclamation, how­ from the North. crews, and there was scarcely a ship that for liberty was in the final analysis no more ever, changed the situation considerably. By the end of the war there was scarcely didn't have some Afro-American crew than a fight for reenslavement, this time by With its promulgation, massive pro-North­ a battle in which Black troops had not par­ members. the Black Code laws that swept the South em demonstrations and meetings took place ticipated. Perhaps their outstanding achieve­ Because of the close quarters on warships, after the abandonment of Reconstruction by among English workers, making it politi­ ment was the charge of the Third Brigade it was never practical to segregate the Blacks the Federal government. cally inexpedient for the British government of the Eighteenth Division on the Confed­ within the crews, the same way the army did When the army was reorganized in 1866 erate fortifications on New Market Heights in all-Black units, and for that reason the navy and put on a peacetime basis, six Black regi­ near Richmond, Virginia. For their gallantry was not only integrated as a service, but also ments were established by law as a part of av-et11--be-r BOOKS in that engagement Black soldiers received was integrated within each ship .... the regular army and as recognition and re­ thirteen Congressional Medals of Honor in With the Civil War over, Black soldiers ward for valor. By an act ofCongress in 1866, OFTHEMON1H one day. In all, twenty Blacks received the found that they had achieved the legal sta­ four regiments-the Twenty-fourth and medal in recognition of "gallantry and in­ tus of freemen and the Fourteenth and Fif­ Twenty-fifth Infantry and the Ninth and Tenth trepidity" in combat during the Civil War. teenthAmendments to the Constitution had Cavalry-were organized as permanent army Pathfinder John Hope Franklin estimates that the given them the legal rights of citizenship. units and stationed west of the Mississippi Readers Club 25% Black mortality rate in the Army was nearly Once again, as in the Revolutionary War and River. Most of the officers in these units were DISCOUNT SPECIALS 40 percent higher than among white soldiers. the War of 1812, wartime manpower short­ white. The best-known graduate of these regi­ This was partially due to unfavorable condi­ ages had forced some kind of tolerance. ments was Gen. John Pershing, who earned tions, poor equipment, bad medical care, and But with the war over, the need for Black the nickname "Black Jack" because of his Fascism: What It Is the rapidity with which the Blacks were sent support diminished and with no jobs, no service with Black soldiers. and How to Fight It LEON TROTSKY The origins offascism, and a working-class strat­ -IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP--- egy to defeat it. $4.00. Special price: $3.00. Where to find Pathfinder books and Mailing address: P.O. Box 44739. AUSTRALIA distributors of the Militant, Perspectiva Zip: 48244-0739. Tel: (313) 554-0504. Sydney: I st Fir, 3/281-287 Beamish St., The Great Labor Uprising Mundial, New International, Nouvelle E-mail: [email protected] Campsie, NSW 2194. Mailing address: P.O. Internationale, Nueva Internacional and Box K879, Haymarket, NSW 1240. Tel: (02) of 1877 MINNESOTA: St. Paul: 113 Bernard St., Ny International. West St. Paul. Zip: 55118. Tel: (651) 644- 9718 9698. PHILIP S. FONER 6325. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] The first generalized UNITED STATES BRITAIN confrontation NEW JERSEY: Newark: 168 Bloomfield ALABAMA: Birmingham: 3029A Avenue, 2nd Floor. Zip: 07104. Tel: (973) London: 4 7 The Cut. Postal code: SE I 8LL. between capital and Bessemer Road. Zip: 35208. Tel: (205) 780- Tel: 020-7928-7993. labor in the United 481-0077. E-mail: [email protected] 0021. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] States, which NEW YORK: Garment District, 545 8th effectively shut down CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles: 4229 S. CANADA Central Ave. Zip: 90011. Tel: (323) 233-9372. Ave., 14th Floor. Mailing address: the entire railway P.O. Box 30. Zip:l0018. Tel: (212) Montreal: 1237 Jean Talon E. Montreal, system. $19.95. E-mail: [email protected] 695-7358. E-mail: [email protected]; QC. Postal code: H2R !WI. Tel: (514) 284- San Francisco: 3926 Mission St. Zip: 94112. Upper Manhattan: 599W. 187 St. #lA Zip: 7369. E-mail: [email protected] Special price: $15.50 Tel: (415) 584-2135. E-mail:sfswp 10033. Tel: (212) 740-4611. E-mail: Toronto: 2761 Dundas St. West, Postal @hotmail.com [email protected] code: M6P IY4. Tel: (416) 767-3705. COLORADO: Craig: 6 West Victory Way. NORTH CAROLINA: Charlotte Area: E-mail: [email protected] Blacks in America's Wars Zip: 81625. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1539. 2001A N. Cannon Blvd. Kannapolis. Zip: Vancouver: 2645 E. Hastings, Room 203. ROBERT W. MULLEN Zip: 81626. Tel: (970) 826-0289.E-mail: 28083. Tel: (704) 932-0821. E-mail: [email protected] Postal code: V5V IZ5. Tel: (604) 872-8343. Reveals many of the CharlotteSWP [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] little-known facts FLORIDA: Miami: 8365 NE 2nd Ave. about the role and #206 Zip: 33138. Tel: (305) 751-7076. E-mail: OHIO: Cleveland: 11018 LorainAve. Zip: FRANCE treatment of Black [email protected]; Tampa: 1441 E. 44111. Tel: (216) 688-1190. E-mail: Paris: Centre MBE 175, 23 rue Lecourbe. Gls. $9.95. Special Fletcher, Suite 421. Zip: 33612. Tel: (813) 910- [email protected] Postal code: 75015. Tel: (01) 47-26-58-21. price: $7.50. 8507. E-mail: [email protected] PENNSYLVANIA: Hazleton: 69 North E-mail: [email protected] GEORGIA: Atlanta: 2791 LakewoodAve. Wyoming St. Zip: 18201. Tel: (570) 454- ICELAND Zip: 30315. Mailing address: P.O. Box 8320. Email: [email protected] Reykjavik: Skolavordustig 6B. Mailing Philadelphia: 5237 N. 5th St. Zip: 19120. Tel: Writings of Leon 162515. Zip 30321. Tel: (404) 763-2900. address: P. Box 0233, IS 121 Reykjavik. Tel: E-mail: [email protected] (215) 324-7020. E-mail: Philadelphia 552 5502. E-mail: [email protected] Trotsky 1936-37 [email protected] Pittsburgh: 5907 Penn One of 14 volumes ILLINOIS: Chicago: 290 I W. 59th Street. Ave. Suite 225. Zip. 15206. Tel: (412) 365- NEW ZEALAND covering the period ofTrotsky's exile from the Zip: 60629. Tel: (773) 737-1190. E-mail: 1090. E-mail: [email protected] Auckland: Suite 3, 7 MasonAve., Otahuhu. Soviet Union in 1929 until his assassination at [email protected] Postal address:P.O. Box 3025. Tel: (9) 276- Stalin's orders in 1940. $31.95. Special price: IOWA: Des Moines: 3720 6th Ave. Zip: TEXAS: Houston: 619 West 8th St. Zip: 8885. E-mail: [email protected] 77007. Tel: (713) 869-6550. E-mail: $24.00. 50313. Tel: (515) 288-2970. E-mail: Christchurch: Gloucester Arcade, 129 [email protected] swphouston@ev !.net Gloucester St. Postal address: P.O. Box 13- Join the Pathfinder Readers 969. Tel: (3) 365-6055. MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: 12 WASHINGTON, D.C.: 3437 14th St. NW Club for $10 and receive Zip: 20010. Tel: (202) 387-1590. E-mail: E-mail: [email protected] discounts all year long Bennington St., 2nd Floor, East Boston. Mailing address: P.O. Box 261. Zip: 02128. [email protected] SWEDEN Tel: (617) 569-9169. E-mail: 103426.3430 ORDER ONLINE AT WASHINGTON: Seattle: 5418 Rainier Stockholm: Domargrand 16, S-129 47, @compuserve.com WWW .PATHFINDERPRESS.COM Avenue South. Zip: 98118-2439. Tel: (206) Hagersten. Tel: (08) 31 69 33.E-mail: MICHIGAN: Detroit: 4208 W. Vernor St. 323-1755. E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] 14 The Militant December 23, 2002 -EDITORIALS------The curve of An appeal to readers capitalist Dear reader, "trafficker" that the INS today is trying to convey. In fact, development We urge you to join the campaign to demand that the in 1990 the INS itself granted him a green card, waiving Immigration and Naturalization Service immediately free the conviction, which was explicitly documented in his Continued from Page 4 Roger Calero and stop exclusion proceedings against him. application. attempting to take any actual period in history as a basis, On December 3 Calero, a Militant staff writer and associ­ Hundreds of thousands of people like Roger Calero have we do so for the simple reason that any attempt of this ate editor of the Spanish-language magazine Perspectiva been caught in the nets of the INS, especially as the U.S. sort would resemble far too much an incautious anticipa­ Mundial, was seized by the INS at the Houston airport as government has accelerated its assault on the rights of tion of those results flowing from a complex and pains­ he was returning from a reporting assignment in Latin working people. The U.S. rulers have tripled the size of taking investigation which has yet to be made. America. He was detained at the airport by the immigra­ the INS, making it the largest federal police force, and tion cops for several hours, not allowed to contact his at­ have stepped up factory raids as well as random stops on Enrich theory of historical materialism torney during that time, and then thrown into a privately highways both near the Mexican and Canadian borders. At the present time, it is of course still impossible to run immigration jail nearby. He now faces exclusion from They have stepped up factory raids and moved to deny foresee to any precise degree just what sections of the field the United States. immigrants in many states the right to drivers' licenses. ofhistory will be illuminated and just how much light will This is an attack on his right to live and work as a jour­ With the accumulation of antidemocratic legislation over be cast by a materialist investigation which would proceed nalist in this country-and an attack on the basic rights of the past decade, from the 1996 immigration law to the from a more concrete study of the capitalist curve and the all. 2001 USA Patriot Act, the government has sought to cur­ interrelationship between the latter and all the aspects of When he was arrested, Calero was traveling back from tail the right to due process, protection against arbitrary social life. Conquests that may be attained on this road can Guadalajara, Mexico, where he reported on an interna­ search and seizure, and other constitutional guarantees. be determined only as the result of such an investigation tional student conference and the largest annual book fair This is the brutal face of American "justice" for increas­ itself, which must be more systematic, more orderly than in Latin America. A few days earlier he had covered a ing numbers of workers. those historical material excursions hitherto undertaken. conference held in Havana, Cuba, on the Free Trade Area The staffs of the Militant andPerspectiva Mundialhave In any case, such an approach to modern history prom­ of the Americas. He filed articles from these events that launched a campaign to win Roger Calero's freedom, to ises to enrich the theory of historical materialism with have been published in our newspaper. Calero has taken allow him to rejoin our staff and continue helping to pro­ conquests far more precious than the extremely dubious several reporting assignments in Latin America over the vide readers with the coverage of labor and political speculative juggling with the concepts and terms of the past two years-in addition to his range of coverage of struggles that contributes to understanding what is hap­ materialist method that has, under the pens of some of U.S. and world events. pening in the world today. our Marxists, transplanted the methods of formalism into Now the INS has thrown one of our reporters and edi­ We ask you to join in this effort. Send a letter to the the domain of the materialist dialectic, and has led to re­ tors in prison. As the associate editor of Perspectiva INS district director in Houston urging that Calero be re­ ducing the task to rendering definitions and classifications Mundial, he is one of two staff members for the Spanish­ leased now and their moves to exclude him be dropped. more precise and to splitting empty abstractions into four language magazine. The arrest is a disruption of the abil­ Circulate petitions to introduce this fight for justice to your equally empty parts; it has, in short, adulterated Marxism ity to produce these two publications. Despite the severe co-workers, friends, and associates. Help raise crucially by means of the indecently elegant mannerisms of Kantian restrictions imposed by the jailers, Calero continues to needed funds to cover the legal expenses and costs of in­ epigones. It is a silly thing indeed endlessly to sharpen write from behind prison walls, as you can see from the formational literature for mounting this campaign. and resharpen an instrument to chip away Marxist steel, report he filed for this issue-telling the story of fellow Write to Calero to tell him you are part of his fight and when the task is to apply the instrument in working over workers who face a similar denial of their rights by the to let him know about other struggles for justice you are the raw material! U.S. government. involved in. Write to Roger Calero, 804B, File #A27 960 In our opinion this theme could provide the subject Calero has been a permanent resident of the United 195, Houston Processing Center, 15850 Export Plaza matter for the most fruitful work of our Marxist seminars States for the past 12 years. The INS is now seeking to Drive, Houston, TX 77030. on historical materialism. Independent investigations un­ revoke his status and keep him out of this country, where Help distribute the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial dertaken in this sphere would undoubtedly shed new light he works, lives, and has his immediate family. They are -both to tell the truth and win more support for the fight or at least throw more light on isolated historical events trying to exclude him on the basis of a 1988 conviction, to free Calero, and to present the whole breadth of news and entire epochs. Finally, the very habit of thinking in when he was a high school student in Los Angeles, of and working-class perspectives that these two publications terms of the foregoing categories would greatly facilitate selling marijuana to an undercover cop on a sting opera­ offer. political orientation in the present epoch, which is an ep­ tion. Threatened with jail, he copped a plea and received In solidarity, och that reveals more openly than ever before the con­ a suspended 60-day sentence with three years' probation, Martin Koppel nection between capitalist economics, which has attained and paid a $50 fine. That is not exactly the picture of a Editor the peak of saturation, and capitalist politics, which has become completely unbridled. Support N.Y. transit workers! Mine bosses in

The fight by 34,000 subway and bus workers in New sis" there is no money for pay raises and in fact transit York for a contract is at the center of the resistance today workers have to give back some of what they've won in South Africa by working people in this city to the employers and the previous struggles. The transit workers correctly reply, city and state governments. The backing of fellow work­ "Find the money!" Of course there is plenty of money­ Continued from Page 11 ing people, both in New York and across the country, can beginning with the billions in payments forked out reli­ could hang on to the mineral rights regime of the past. weigh in the balance of this struggle. giously to the bondholders. The needs of working people More than any other industry, with the possible exception The billionaire families that run New York City, repre­ must be the starting point, not the employers' problems. of agriculture, the mines symbolise white domination of sented by the Bloomberg administration, are waging an The big-business media has been working overtime to the economy and the labor repression of the colonial and offensive against working people. They are seeking to crank up its propaganda against the TWU. The New York apartheid eras." drive down the wages and benefits and cut the jobs of Post has labeled the union's fight a "jihad." Bloomberg In their June 9 statement the COSATU officials, while tens of thousands of city employees. They aim to slash says the transit workers, if they go on strike, will be re­ recording their support for the legislation, said that along funding for schools, raise transit fares and tolls, and re­ sponsible for the worsening of the city's economy, for with National Union ofMineworkers leaders they would duce medical coverage for municipal workers. All this in people dying from lack of medical care, and numerous be voicing "concerns that the Bill does not go far enough the name of fighting the "budget deficit." While other problems. No--as long as the Transit Authority re­ in undoing monopoly ownership in the [mining] sector. Bloomberg claims he is for "equal sacrifice," some are fuses to agree to the contract demands of the transit work­ The danger of the licensing system envisaged in the Bill more equal than others-the wealthy bondholders areal­ ers, it's the city government that will be responsible for is that once a company gets an initial prospecting right ways guaranteed their payments, at the expense of work­ any disruption that may ensue. for a mineral, it becomes very easy for them to get min­ ing people. The billionaire mayor's pledge to pedal to work Big-business spokespeople call the transit workers ing and renewal rights ad infinitum. This may well lead to in the event of a transit strike is a laughable cover-up of "overpaid" to pit working people against each other. But a situation where ownership patterns in a few decades' the fact he represents the superwealthy class (besides hav­ those wages are the result of years of struggles, and a vic­ time are not significantly different from today's." ing a little pocket change himself). tory by the TWU will put other workers in a stronger po­ The union statement also criticized the legislation for The transit workers are fighting for an end to a brutal sition to increase their wages and social benefits. paying too little "attention to the human dimension of disciplinary system, for job safety, to stop the The transit workers' battle poses many of the social mining. We want to see the licensing system used as le­ underfinancing of their health fund, and other basic needs. questions facing the entire working class, including the verage to upgrade workers' living and working conditions These are very same questions that other working people­ need to expand the national social security system to guar­ and health and safety standards in the industry." union and nonunion alike-----{:onfront in face of the bosses' antee workers a lifetime right to free, universal medical profit drive. The recent deaths of two transit workers­ care; workers' compensation if they are injured; and un­ which could have been avoided if the Transit Authority employment insurance for as long as needed. These so­ had met the Transport Workers Union (TWU) demand to cial entitlements go hand in hand with the fight to ensure Malcolm X Talks assign flaggers to every track crew-highlight the crucial jobs for all; to raise the wages and shorten the hours of question of safety. the working class; and the union's ability to enforce health to Young People The city fathers claim that because of the "budget cri- and safety on the job. The government's threats to mobilize the National This new, expanded edition Guard as strikebreakers underscores the fact that the em­ includes four talks given to young ployers' attack on the TWU and other workers at home is people in Ghana, the United SUBSCRIBE TO intertwined with Washington's moves toward a war of Kingdom, and the United States in plunder in the Mideast. They are part of a two-front war 1964 and 1965; an inteNiew with PERSPECTIVA on working people. the Young Socialist magazine; and MUNDIAL The government is threatening to assault the transit work­ an enlarged display of r::>hoto­ A Spanish-language ers if they strike by imposing massive fines and jailing union graphs. In the last months of his socialist magazine leaders. Is it possible to stand up to these threats?Yes, if the life, Malcolm X spoke out more and more directly about whole labor movement comes together behind the TWU the capitalist roots of racism, exploitation, and imperialist Special offer for new and flexes its muscles. Past union battles, like the 1980 tran­ oppression. The new English-language edition has been readers: $6 for 4 sit strike and the 1990-91 Daily News strike, show that the released together with the Spanish-language edition, months working class inNew York can be counted on to cut through Malcolm X habla a Ia juventud. $15. 00 for each book. the bosses' propaganda and extend decisive solidarity. By standing up to the city government and the employer Order online at www.pathfinderpress.com. Please include $3 for shipping and handling of the first book and 50 cents for Send your order to Perspectiva Mundial, 410 West St., New class , the transit workers help point the road forward for York, NY 10014 each additional book. all working people. Their fight is our fight. December 23, 2002 The Militant 15 THE MILITANT 10,000 march for UK firefighters BY PAUL DAVIES were claiming benefits." LONDON-"Ifwe don't get a settlement Dewi Jones, a firefighter from Newport, we'll be back on the picket line. There is South Wales, discussed the potential impact total resolve throughout the union, and the of demands by the employers-the Local government's tactics haven't broken our will Government Association-for increased to fight," said Rory McAlister, a firefighter overtime hours. "For the last 25 years our from Berkshire. McAlister was among thou­ union has prevented overtime working," he sands of firefighters, their families, and other said-a stand that has led to the creation of trade unionists from across the country who "6,000 extra jobs. The government is try­ marched here December 7 in support of the ing to put an end to this, to cover their job fight waged by the Fire Brigades Union cuts with overtime working." (FBU) in defense ofjobs and services as well as their living standards. Solidarity on picket lines McAlister added, "We want less medals Firefighters paid tribute to the solidarity for bravery and more money for pay." The they have received, describing donations of firefighters are claiming an hourly take­ food, money and Christmas presents. home wage of£8.50 (£1 = $1.57). "We've had visits to our picket line from Up to I 0,000 people turned out for the members of other unions and students at action. Groups of trade unionists from the York university have organized collections Communication Workers Union, the Asso­ for our union hardship fund," said Peter ciated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Clark, who marched with a contingent of Firemen, and the UNISON public sector firefighters from York. workers union marched with the FBU. At a Clark reported that part -time or "retained" rally in Hyde Park following the march, firefighters, "who are not in the FBU and John Monks, the general secretary of the have not been on strike, have been joining National Trades Union Congress, spoke in us on the picket line after they finish work. support of the FBU fight. So did represen­ They realize that this is a fight that affects tatives of the Transport and General Work­ Militant/Jim Spaul them; if we lose then their conditions will ers Union, the General Municipal and Boil­ Firefighters rally at Hyde Park in London December 7. "We want less medals for come under attack. This fight affects all of ermakers Union, and other unions. bravery and more money for pay," said one of the unionists at the demonstration. us-Blair is trying to break our union, be­ The action followed two nationwide cause we are strong." firefighters' strikes in November. A third firefighters. the employers, Gilchrist added, "We'll try In talks with employers the union is re­ national strike, due to begin December 4, A further eight-day strike is due to start to find a negotiated settlement, but if the sisting attempts to eliminate night shift jobs, was called off when the union decided to on December 16. government tries to wreck it we will be back change shift patterns, and establish joint take up a proposal to negotiate through the "The government accuses us of interfer­ on strike." control rooms with the cops and the ambu­ arbitration organization ACAS. During the ing in politics. If they are going to cut 10,000 Speaking to Militantreporters at the dem­ lance service. Clark explained that the lat­ strikes the government has mobilized close jobs we have a right to intervene," said FBU onstration, McAlister-a firefighter for 28 ter proposal is part of a package of cuts that to 19,000 troops to drive fire trucks. Gov­ general secretary Andy Gilchrist to the rally years-recalled the last national strike 25 would "reduce our ability to respond rap­ ernment officials from Prime Minister An­ in Hyde Park. Referring to the government's years ago. That action "lasted 63 days," he idly to fires. Currently we guarantee to re­ thony Blair on down have taken the lead in last minute intervention to scuttle a deal said. "It was even harder then-firefighters spond to a call within 10 seconds-but in a propaganda campaign against the reached in late November by the union and were so low-paid that 80 percent of them joint control rooms calls would be answered on a 'priority system,' producing a slower response and leading to a loss of life." A delegation of 38 FBU members came from Northern Ireland. "We have toured United files for bankruptcy, plans more cuts firefighters from the Irish Republic, who are members ofSIPTU, around our picket lines "Now people are wondering what's go­ aircraft to flight schedules-have been BY BERNIE SENTER last week," said Tony Maguire. SIPTU is the SAN FRANCISCO-On December 4 the ing to happen. How deep will the layoffs seized by creditors and other carriers. be?" Rick Young, a ramp worker at United US Airways, which declared bankruptcy Services, Industrial, Professional and Tech­ government-appointed Air Transportation nical Union. The FBU, he said, "is planning in Chicago, told the Militant. in August, has announced that it is seeking Stabilization Board denied a UnitedAirlines a "cross-community march in the coming application for $1.8 billion in government­ A spate of airlines have filed for bank­ another round of concessions from its ruptcy in the last few years, pressed by the workforce. David Bronner, the chief execu­ weeks in Belfast across nationalist and secured loans. Five days later the airline's unionist [British loyalist] areas in the city­ bosses filed for Chapter II bankruptcy, un­ increasing competition in the industry com­ tive of the company's primary lender, Retire­ bined with the economic slowdown. Among ment Systems of Alabama, warned union to show the support that exists for our fight." der which the company will keep operat­ At the end of the rally an announcement ing. United's bosses immediately an­ them are TWA, US Airways, Continental, members that if they didn't agree to another and America West. In the past, some com­ $200 million in concessions, he would was made for a December 14 meeting of nounced their intention to carve more out women firefighters, as well as firefighters' panies operating under Chapter 11 have re­ "Chapter seven [liquidate]" the airline. of workers' wages, benefits, and conditions, partners and their families, to build support organized on a more profitable basis. Other AmericanAirlines' owners seek takebacks in their attempt to stay afloat and pay off for the union's struggle. their bondholders and other big investors. times the assets of a given airline-from totaling up to $4 billion a year by 2004. United's loan application was based, in part, on agreements by unions covering the company's 81,000 employees for a package oftakebacks totaling $5.2 billion. Organiza­ Workers bear brunt of ice storDI in Carolinas tions representing the pilots, flight attendants, BY STEVE WOLF power companies to pay for burying their nior citizens who live alone to make sure and ramp workers had voted to approve the KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina-"lt's lines, and eighty percent of Duke's power they were all right. Most were forced to fend concessions. The 13,000 aircraft mechanics, worse than Hurricane Hugo." That's what lines are overhead. A large percentage of for themselves. A handful of shelters were members of the International Association of local government officials say about the the outage was caused by ice-laden branches set up at some area schools and public fa­ Machinists, rejected the $700 million in con­ December 5 ice storm that hit North and falling on power lines. cilities. Radio reports told people to bring cessions they were handed, however. South Carolina especially hard. An esti­ The small town of Maiden, North Caro­ their own bedding to the shelter. But in the With the rejection of the loan and the de­ mated 2 million people were without heat lina, was an exception. After the February case of Kannapolis the opening of the shel­ cision to file for bankruptcy, the company and electricity in the first 24 hours. 1996 ice storm, it took town crews three ters themselves was delayed because oflack put aside plans to submit a new contract "Natural disaster?" That's what the big­ days to clear all the limbs and trees and re­ of heat. proposal to the mechanics. The lAM has re­ business media would have one believe. But store power. Since then, the Town Council Most people sought their own solutions. ported that its members are owed nearly some of the truth has begun to come out, has budgeted money every year specifically The few stores that were open rapidly sold $500 million in back pay. usually buried at the end of articles or in­ for keeping trees trimmed. Unlike Charlotte, out of candles, flashlights, batteries, and According to the Wall Street Journal, side pages. which as of December 7 was predicting that kerosene heaters. "Some retailers, hotels, Unjted's chief executive Glenn Tilton said The Charlotte Observer for example tens of thousands would be without power restaurants and shopping malls enjoyed a December 9 that he is "convinced that UAL noted that downtown businesses never lost for at least several more days and up to two windfall," the Observer noted. One store was must lower its labor costs more dramatically power "because the area is served by an weeks, most Maiden residents were with­ selling kerosene heaters at $114 a piece. than it intended to in its loan guarantee ap­ underground line." In addition, "Heavy in­ out power for only half a day. Hospitals in the Charlotte area reported plication." Tilton said that "the carrier will dustrial users were less vulnerable to power Do profits for big business take priority that more than 200 people, mostly Asian and work with its creditors, union leaders and outages because they typically connect di­ over the human needs of working people? Spanish-speaking immigrants, were hospi­ other stakeholders to make major changes in rectly to higher power transmission lines," Readers can draw their own conclusions. talized for carbon monoxide poisoning or a UAL's towering expenses, 'costly, restrictive' the daily noted. Duke Power, the main elec­ No effort was made to request or orga­ number of illnesses caused by improper use union work rules, routes, fleet and service." tric company in the region-with more than nize volunteers to help clear roads of fallen of portable heaters or cooking indoors us­ If the company does not gain even larger 1 million of its customers without electric­ trees to facilitate the passing of traffic and ing charcoal grill. Many did not know or savings than those already agreed to through ity the day after the storm-"strings those emergency vehicles. Some people on their were not warned in their first language about "consensual negotiations with the unions ... lines higher and trims the trees around them own initiative took out chain saws and possible carbon-monoxide poisoning dan­ [United] intends to use the bankruptcy pro­ more frequently." helped clear streets or aid neighbors. gers when using these devices indoors with­ cess to force changes on its labor contracts," In other words, to maximize profits and They didn't get much immediate help on out adequate ventilation. reported the Journal. save money, Duke and the local capitalist this score from the government. Once the But the ice storm didn't much hurt the The New York Times spoke just as bluntly governments skimp on trimming trees near disaster began, North Carolina's governor four main shopping malls in the Charlotte in a December 10 headline that read, "Com­ utility lines and avoid burying existing instead asked everyone to "stay off the area. They had power the whole time. Thou­ pany to Seek Deeper Cuts From its 81 ,000 power lines. The city of Charlotte even has roads" and declared a state of emergency. sands without heat headed to the malls to workers." a law that forbids the city from requiring No effort was made to actively seek out se- stay warm.

16 The Militant December 23, 2002