Soviel Workers Prolesl "Free Markel" Shock Trealmenl
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
25C1: No. 543 ~x __ 24 January 1992 Report from Moscow Soviel Workers Prolesl "Free Markel" Shock Trealmenl MOSCOW, January 18-Two weeks have passed since out by Yeltsin and his counterrevolutionary cohorts, Russian president Boris Yeltsin's "free market reform" the entire economy is grinding to a 'Standstill. Moscow sent the prices of food and other necessities skyrock TV News One (17 January) reports that miners across eting. Despite demagogic promises of abundant sup the country are ready to strike: "In Dzerzhinsk, there' plies, the store shelves remain empty and lines remain are 18,000 miners who are unemployed because they long. Popular anger is fast bubbling to the surface. As ran out of support timbers in the mines" and have no "Tsar Boris" tours Russia, he is greeted everywhere by money to buy more. "In Armenia, the lack of gasoline placards, jeers and shouts attacking the "liberalization" and heating oil is catastrophic. There is electricity only of prices. And Yeltsin's political allies have started to six hours a day in the cities and four hours in the desert and denounce him. countryside. The enterprises have stopped working. At the same time, hyperinflation, hoarding and spec There is energy only for the bakeries and hospitals. ulation are dest 'oying the links between mine and Kindergartens are closed down." factory, between, :ollective farm and food store. In Mos Food riots have started erupting in various So cow, most industrial enterprises have enough supplies viet cities. In Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, police At January 12 Kremlin protest against star to operate for only another two or three weeks. With opened fire on thousands of students marching on the vation prices, demonstrator holds up picture the imperialist-dictated "shock treatment" being carried continued on page 8 of Lenin. Targeting Irag's Hussein,..!gain Bush Reelection PlOY George Bush wants to get a "twofer" out obviously I couldn't talk about it." William of Iraq. First time around, the "Operation Des Safire, who had first floated the scenario ert Storm" blitzkrieg gave him an easy win "based on a tip from an intelligence source," over an outclassed opponent. This "victory" called it the "April Surprise" (after the "Octo could then be used to intimidate resistance to ber Surprise" in which the Reagan team alleg an American-dominated "New World Order." edly got the Iranians to refuse to return the One year later, it's election time and the tem hostages until after the 1980 election). Safire pers of hard-pressed American workers are wrote: as frayed as last year's yellow ribbons. Bush "Mr. Bush knows that he will have to return desperately needs a boost after' his recent to Saddam Hussein. As Manuel Noriega can photo-op disaster in Tokyo, barfing on the testify, this American President is better the second time around. He has asked the Joint prime minister of Japan. (Now Japanese audi Chiefs for a plan to strike again .... ences are cracking up watching a performing "When? An October 'surprise' would be too monkey trained to roll his eyes and keel over obviously political. Much depends on Sad at the command of "Bush-san, Bush-san.") dam's cooperative recalcitrance, but some of So since prosperity doesn't seem to be just our spooks expect a balloon up in April or May." around the comer, George Herbert (Hoover) Walker Bush has set in motion a campaign From the bunch that once sent a brace of\ ploy code-named "Bring Me the Head of Sad pearl-handled revolvers and a Bible to the dam Hussein." Iranian ayatollahs, nothing is too blatant or Remember CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect bizarre. the President) of Watergate fame? Now Son This time, instead of bungling a burglary of CREEP has probably dispatched a black they would put bombs down the airshaft of bag team to Baghdad. To set the stage there a bunker, playing the videotape in real time was a planted lead article in the Sunday New on the TV evening news. U.S. News &' World York Times (20 January), under the kicker, Report (20 January) reports that "Despite the "White House Weighs Proposals to Topple Bush administration's repeated denials that it Hussein Before U.S. Presidential Vote." There had specifically targeted Saddam Hussein, in would be "covertly" fomented uprisings of the final hours of the war-within hours of ~ Kurdish rebels in the north and Shi'ites in the ceasefire-two U.S. Air Force F-IIIF air the south of Iraq to "draw out and divide Mr. craft dropped specially designed 5,000-pound Gus Hall Coup Hussein's last Republican Guard divisions." bombs on an Iraqi command bunker 15 miles Against Right Wing Of course, the "Saudi-backed option would northwest of Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to require a major allied air campaign over Iraq kill the Iraqi leader." One central command and possibly the reintroduction of American officer involved in decidin~ where to drop ground troops in the region." This "campaign': the bombs said, "I would be lying to you if would culminate with the assassination of I told you they weren't meant for Saddam CPUSA Hussein.'; Saddam Hussein-something it is now con firmed that the U.S. tried but failed to do last So now we're being bombarded with th,e Shatters year. "one year after" retrospectives from the kept The "leak" gave war secretary Dick Cheney American media who "can now tell all," hav thet:hance to act tough and cagey on CBS' ing covered it all up at the time. It only con See Page 4 Face the Nation talk show, predicting that the firms what we told you last year: "Desert Iraqi leader would be ousted while saying Storm" was no video war, it was calculated, coyly, "if we were engaged in such planning, continued on page 13 bombings which serve only to divide the a diagnosed paranoid schi~ophrenic, had Irish working class and strengthen Brit given 19 contradictory statements to the Parti§ftD ~feD~'" ish colonial rule. cops during her 20 months in police cus Hours after the Court announced its tody. Her initial statement that Dhoruba £ .........ttee decision supporters protested at Joe was innocent was never disclosed. When Doherty Comer on Pearl Street in lower Dhoruba sought to call her back to the CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES Manhattan. The Partisan Defense Com witness stand after one of her statements mittee has persistently defended Joe clearing him came to light, the pro~ecu Doherty. On January 20, the PDC sent tors qenied knowing her whereabouts, an urgent protest to the Attorney General although at that very moment she was demanding Doherty be granted asylum. still in police custody. Political Asylum for New York"s highest court declared * * * that this outrageous conduct did not Two years after defeating a VICIOUS automatically nullify the conviction. Joe Doherty! COINTELPRO frame-up, former New Dhoruba is scheduled for a hearing in York Panther leader Dhoruba bin Wahad February where he is now "required to After an eight-year vendetta, the U.S. Though Doherty's struggle has won (Richard Moore) is threatened with a make an actual showing that prejudice government may succeed' in banishing widespread international support, dam return to the prison hell where he already resulted from the prosecution's" conceal Irish Republican fighter Joseph Doherty aging sectarianism within the Irish spent 19 years. On December 19, the ment of evidence. Smash the frame-up to a life of torture in British jails. On Republican movement erupted just New York Court of Appeals granted the of Dhoruba bin Wahad! January 15 the Supreme Court cleared weeks before the Court decided his fate. prosecution'S appeal from the March the way for Doherty's deportation. Every Doherty came under attack from the Irish 1990 court deCision which overturned * * * lower court had ruled for Doherty. Northern Aid Committee for voicing Dhoruba's conviction. The racist state On December 4, Geronimo ji Jaga District judge John Sprizzo declared concern about damage caused to a hos authorities threaten to bury him behind (Pratt) was denied parole for the tenth Doherty was convicted of a political pital complex adjacent to the Musgrave bars and throwaway the key. time. The day before the parole hearing offense "in its most classic form." Yet military base recently attacked by the Framed on charges stemming from the Oakland mayor Elihu Harris and the the Reagan/Bush "JustiCe" Department IRA. The Manhattan-based Irish People . shooting of two cops'in a 1971 machine majority of the City Council supported and the Reagan/Bush Court denied dropped his weekly column. Subsequent gun attack on Manhattan D.A. Frank a "Resolution in Support of Justice for Doherty~s right to even have a hearing ly the paper announced the dispute was Hogan's home, Dhoruba's conviction Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)," which was dis on his request for political asylum. cleared up and Doherty was back on was reversed on grounds that the pros tributed to the parole board together with In 1980 Doherty survived a murderous staff. ecUtion withheld evidence, including a letter from the 70,OOO-member Cen ambush by British SAS commandos in The PDC steadfastly defends the IRA ballistics tests and witness statements. tral Labor Council of Alameda County Belfast only to be convicted in a star from British imperialism's brutal repres The D.A. 's star witness Pauline Joseph, continued on page 15 chamber proceeding for the killing of sion. But unlike the uncritical cheerlead one of his would-be assassins. Escaping ers of Irish nationalism, we recognize a two days before sentencing, Doherty distinction between defensible Republi made his way to New York.