As Iraq quagmire deepens Bush hails Israeli attack on Syria · 2009. 10. 6. · • La Resistencia Palestina • Histórico evento pro derechos de inmigrantes 12 50¢ WW PHOTO: DEIRDRE

‘FREE PALESTINE!’WW talks to CharlotteKates 6

UNITED NATIONSFriend of the oppressed or imperialist tool? 9

UAW contractWorkers face layoffs, plant closings 5

California electionOut of the frying pan

EDITORIAL 10

MUMIA ABU-JAMALHonored as citizen of Paris 3

GUANTANAMO"Classified" U.S. repression 11

Oct. 16, 2003 Vol. 45, No. 41

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ing the supposed locations in Damascus of leaders of Palestiniangroups and 10 sites identified as Palestinian offices. The map wasentitled “Terror Network in the Damascus Region.”

It has been asserted that Israel did not inform the U.S. anddid not get the go-ahead for the bombing. For three years it hasreceived billions in aid from Washington while sending tanks,fighter planes, helicopters and heavily armed troops to reoccupythe territories, assassinate leaders, kill civilians, destroy homesand imprison Yasser Arafat—all to crush the Intifada. But in vain.The Sharon regime is truly desperate at being unable to stop thePalestinian resistance.

Sharon may have been making a bold gesture to cover up hisinability to extinguish the Palestinian struggle. But he certainlygot the go-ahead from the Bush administration, if not verbally,then in the form of unmistakable signals.

Most obviously, when Bush denounced the bombing in Haifa,he deliberately and demonstratively left out the customary warn-ing against escalation that has accompanied every denunciationof major Palestinian attacks in the recent period.

Even more significantly, two days before the bombing theBush administration dropped its opposition to the SyriaAccountability Act, which has been held up in Congress by theadministration since before the invasion of Iraq. The bill wouldimpose sanctions on Syria if it does not end its support for thePalestinians, especially the militant group Hezbollah, and stopalleged production of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles.

Last month Undersecretary of State John Bolton testifiedbefore Congress that Syria was “trying aggressively to acquire and

By Fred Goldstein

The Bush administration, despite being bogged down in Iraqwhere more U.S. soldiers are being killed and wounded eachweek, has not given up its dream of recolonizing the Middle East.Witness Bush’s enthusiastic endorsement for two days runningof the Israeli government’s bombing of Syria on Oct. 5.

The government of Ariel Sharon carried out the bombing ofan abandoned military camp 10 miles outside Syria’s capital ofDamascus after a 27-year-old apprentice lawyer, HanadiJaradat, had carried out a suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel. Herbrother Fadi, 23, and cousin Saleh, 31, had been shot to death18 months earlier by Israeli troops.

Jaradat and her family had watched as Sharon sent infantry,tanks and bulldozers into Jenin to crack down on the PalestinianIntifada. Dozens of Palestinians were massacred during theattack, many dying under rubble as their homes were destroyedin the impoverished refugee camp of 30,000. Jenin is now ringedby Israeli tanks and armored vehicles.

Bush telephoned Sharon the day after the bombing of Syriaand “made it very clear to the prime minister, like I have con-sistently done, that Israel’s got a right to defend itself and thatIsrael must not feel constrained in defending the homeland.”(www.salon.com, Oct. 7)

Bush then escalated his approval the next day for the televi-sion cameras. Declaring that the airstrike was “essential,” Bushannounced: “We would do the same thing.” Of course, Bushmade a cynical remark about being careful “not to escalate,” asthough the unprovoked bombing of Syria and the violation ofLebanese airspace were not already a significant escalation.

Bush’s comments came even though Israel issued a map show-

• La Resistencia Palestina• Histórico evento

pro derechos de inmigrantes 12

50¢

WW PHOTO: DEIRDRE GRISWOLD

100,000 demand

Full rights for immigrant workers 5

As Iraq quagmire deepens

Bush hails Israeliattack on SyriaW

W PH

OTO

: DEIRD

RE GRISW

OLD

Continued on page 6

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Page 2 Oct. 16, 2003 www.workers.org

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WW CALENDAR

NationalLos Angeles on Palestine, Iraq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Racist Limbaugh exposed—again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Paris ceremony honors Mumia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

‘Ill’-ection campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Jobs data indicate need for organization . . . . . . . . . . 4

More millions in U.S. lose health care . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Auto workers face plant closings, layoffs . . . . . . . . . . 5

100,000 at historic rally for immigrant rights . . . . . . . 5

Palestine Solidarity Conference will go on . . . . . . . . . 6

“We mourn the loss of Edward Said”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Venezuelan labor leader hosted in LA . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Internat ional

Bush hails Israeli attack on Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Haiti: A history of U.S. embargoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Workers, anti-militarists march in Rome . . . . . . . . . . 8

How imperialism has used the UN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Editor ia ls

Out of the frying pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Notic ias En Español

La resistencia Palestina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Derechos de inmigrantes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Workers World55 West 17 StreetNew York, N.Y. 10011Phone: (212) 627-2994 Fax: (212) 675-7869E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.workers.orgVol. 45, No. 41 • Oct. 16, 2003Closing date: Oct. 8, 2003

Editor: Deirdre Griswold; Technical Editor: Lal Roohk; Managing Editors: Greg Butterfield, John Catalinotto, LeslieFeinberg, Monica Moorehead, Gary Wilson; West Coast Editors: Richard Becker, Gloria La Riva;Contributing Editors: Joyce Chediac, Pat Chin, NaomiCohen, Shelley Ettinger, Teresa Gutierrez;Technical Staff: John Beacham, Joe Delaplaine, RebeccaFinkel, Hank Sambach; Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Carlos Vargas; Internet: Janet Mayes

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Featured speakers • Panel discussions • Workshops

Los Angeles forum

‘Palestine & Iraq will be free’By John FoleyLos Angeles

On Oct. 3, the Los Angeles Workers World Partybranch sponsored a forum on the ongoing crises inPalestine and Iraq. The main talks were given by MunaCoobtee, a Palestinian WWP member in Los Angeles, andRichard Becker, a leader of the San Francisco WWPbranch. John Parker, a leading organizer of the LosAngeles branch, chaired the forum.

Coobtee spoke on behalf of the Palestinian struggle.She began with an examination and analysis of Zionism,tracing its roots that began in the late 19th century withTheodore Herzl. She explained its growth after WorldWar I, during which both the Balfour Declaration and theSykes-Picot Agreement heralded a new era of imperial-ist aggression against the Palestinians. Coobtee tracedZionism’s role in the formation of Israel in 1948 up to thepresent.

She exposed Zionism as the racist ideology of the set-tler state, given moral and material support by succes-sive U.S. governments. Zionism has been and continues

to be the main justification for the brutal repression ofthe Palestinian people.

Her comment that “for Zionists, history in Palestineended in 70 AD with the expulsions of the Jews by theRomans,” encapsulated the spurious and ludicrousnature of their claim.

Richard Becker gave a thoroughgoing Marxist analy-sis and history of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.

Becker approached the end of his talk with a call toaction by the current generation of Marxists, activists andprogressives, emphasizing the need to continue the workof building a mass movement and keeping the struggleout on the streets.

“With the current battleground against imperialism inthe Middle East,” he said, “the struggles to end the occu-pations of Iraq and Palestine are the ones on which wemust concentrate our efforts.”

He spoke about the determined Iraqi and Palestinianresistance to occupation as further examples of how thepeople can and do change the course of history. He con-cluded with Lenin’s exhortation to breach the chain ofimperialism at its weakest link.

Howcanthestruggleforworldwidesocialismbe revived?

www.workers.org Oct. 16, 2003 Page 3

Racist Limbaugh exposed–againBy Michael Kramer

Donovan Jamal McNabb is anAfrican-American world-class ath-lete who has been the starting quar-terback for the Philadelphia Eagles ofthe National Football League sincehis rookie year in 1999. He grew up inDolton, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, andis the son of a registered nurse andelectrical engineer. He is a graduateof Syracuse University with a degreein Speech Communications.

He started every game during hisfour years as a college quarterback.Syracuse competes in the Big EastConference, which named him offen-sive player of the decade—1990s—and of the year an unprecedentedthree times, in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Starting quarterback is amongfootball’s most difficult positions. Inaddition to athletic abilities itrequires exceptional leadership,intelligence and motivational skills.In 2000 and 2001 McNabb wasvoted by his peers in the NFL to theleague’s Pro Bowl all-star team. Hewas named the 2000 NFL player ofthe year by CBS Radio and has beennamed twice by his teammates asthe club’s offensive player of theyear. In 2002 a broken ankle limitedhis play and yet he was still able tolead his team to within one game ofthe Super Bowl.

On Sept. 29 Rush Limbaugh

viciously insulted McNabb on ESPN’s“NFL Sunday Countdown.” The reac-tionary radio and TV announcerclaimed that McNabb was an “over-rated” quarterback who received toomuch credit for the success of histeam and was hyped by the mediaonly because he is Black.

ESPN is owned by the Disney cor-porate conglomerate. The televisionprogram is watched by millions.Limbaugh has a long history of spout-ing white supremacist and anti-gaycommentary on his own news-talkradio show.

Disney knew exactly what theywere getting when they hired him:someone who would boost ratings byattracting a racist audience. WaltDisney himself was a well-knownright-winger and Nazi sympathizer.

The Disney owners’ plan backfired.McNabb handled a difficult situationin the middle of the highly intenseNFL football season in a dignifiedmanner and exposed Limbaugh asthe piece of racist garbage that he is.He did not lose focus. He led his teamto victory in its next game.

At the same time, anti-racist out-rage throughout the country forcedLimbaugh to resign from the pro-gram. His resignation raises theimportant question of why Disneyand ESPN didn’t fire him immedi-ately after the incident.

The host of “NFL Sunday Count-

By Monica Moorehead

On Oct. 4, death-row political pris-oner Mumia Abu-Jamal was made anhonorary citizen of Paris during anaward ceremony in the French capi-tal. Former U.S. political prisoner andsocial activist Angela Davis acceptedthe award on behalf of Abu-Jamal,who has been on Pennsylvania’s deathrow for over 21 years.

The last time the city of Parisbestowed such an award was back in1971. The recipient then was the leg-endary artist Pablo Picasso.

The socialist mayor of Paris,Bertrand Delanoe, characterized thedeath penalty as “barbaric” and wenton to say that “as long as there is aplace on this planet where one can bekilled in the name of the community,we haven’t finished our work.”(French Press Agency, Oct. 4) Heraised his fist in the air and chanted,“Mumia is a Parisian!”

Upon receiving the award, Davistied Abu-Jamal’s case to the struggleagainst both the occupation of Iraqand the racist attacks on immigrants.

Abu-Jamal is regarded worldwideas the most well-known political pris-

oner on death row. In December 1981he was falsely accused of the shootingdeath of a white Philadelphia policeofficer. Another person has come for-ward to claim responsibility for thedeath of Officer Daniel Faulkner.Both the federal and state appeals

down” is white, along with one of theother panelists. The other two pan-elists are Black. None of them chal-lenged Limbaugh when he made hisracist statement. They all offered sin-cere regrets and apologies the follow-ing week for not saying anything atthe time.

Tom Jackson, a Black panelist, wasvery upset. He described the situationwhere “comments [by Limbaugh]made us very uncomfortable at thetime, although the depth and theinsensitive nature of which were notfully felt until it seemed too late toreply.”

The owners of ESPN and Disneyshould make a formal apology toMcNabb and the viewers for hiringsuch a rabid racist as Limbaugh at allin the name of seeking higher ratingsand profits.

Paris ceremony honors Mumia

courts have to this day refused to hearthis significant testimony that shouldhave led to Abu-Jamal’s freedom.

France abolished the death penaltyin 1981. Throughout its school sys-tem, students are required to studythe case of Abu-Jamal.

By Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row. ..

ILL-EECTION campaigns and the great Du Bois“The Democrats won’t have us and the Republicansdon’t want us. Is there anything to do but impotentlywring our empty hands?”

—Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, “An ABC of Color” (1969)

It is somewhat painful to look at the emerging elec-tion campaign, especially when one thinks about theconcerns of the African-American community and theAmerican working class.

Both have been virtually ignored, or, if noticed,talked to like they are idiots. Few are the politicianswho want to truly tackle and engage the state ofBlack America, and the state of workers in America.

That’s because, in the present world of politicalpoliteness, one does not really want to unsettle onegroup, by promising another group something, and, inthe case of the workers, most politicians have con-ceded the field to that social force that can amass themost dough — the business class. With the exceptionof the former “Boy Mayor” (and now Senator) DennisKucinich (D-Oh.), to speak of NAFTA is a no-no. TheNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) hasdone more to demolish U.S. labor than the planesplowing into the Trade Centers on Sept. 11th!

Because of NAFTA and similar pro-business pacts,the jobs in America which pay the best, manufactur-ing, are fleeing to warmer climes, where workers arepaid a tenth, sometimes a hundredth of what Amer-ican workers are being paid. Most candidates outthere today, Democrats and Republicans, owe theircampaign monies to such corporate interests, andhave no intention of cutting off their lucrative flow.They’re bought; and they’ll stay bought, thank you!Any idea which points to that problem is dismissed as“class war.”

For African-Americans, who are over-represented inthe working class, the economy is in virtual free-fall,with millions (if they are lucky enough to have a job)living one paycheck away from disaster. For them, anAmerican economic recession spells a Depression.This, in a time when schools are doing worse than inseveral generations. This bodes ill for the generationscoming up, for if education is a failure, what of one’slife options?

Way back in the 1920s, the great scholar-activist,W.E.B. Du Bois decried both political parties, forbeing unworthy of Black political support. Writing for“The Crisis” Journal, Du Bois wrote:

“We are invited not to support either of the old,discredited and bankrupt political parties. In otherwords, we are being compelled to do what every hon-est thinking American wants to do—namely, supportsome third party which represents character, decencyand ideals. Just as the two old parties have combinedagainst us to nullify our power by a “gentleman’sagreement” of nonrecognition, no matter how wevote—in the same way they have agreed to nullify thevote of every forward-looking, thinking, honestAmerican. The revolt against this smug and idioticdefiance of the demand for advanced legislation andintelligence is slowly sweeping the country. ... MayGod write us down as asses if ever again we are foundputting our trust in either the Republican or theDemocratic Parties.” (Du Bois, “An ABC of Color” (Int’lPubl., 1969), pp. 124-125)

Du Bois wrote these words over 80 years ago. Howtrue they sound today!

On the most important issues facing the nation,war, peace, social justice, the death penalty, NAFTA,... how similar so many of the candidates sound,regardless of their “party”!

At bottom, most of them are members of the“Corporate Party,” for those are the interests thatthey represent.

The poor, the working class, the urban young, urbanand rural seniors, they are on their own.

For economic issues are not just the stuff of thebusiness pages; such issues are the stuff of most ofour lives, as we live in the shadow of economic reces-sion, and something that the business press praises as“the jobless recovery”! Isn’t it time for a real thirdparty? One which doesn’t have its umbilical cord teth-ered to Wall St.? Isn’t it time for a real Labor Party,that addresses the real bread and butter issues in theinterests of the People?

Let us begin to think about solutions, or 80 yearsfrom now, we will still be reciting Dr. Du Bois’insights.

Donovan McNabb

Angela Davis, accepting citizenship title from Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, onbehalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Third from left is Julia Wright, leader of Inter-national Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal in France.

MUMIA SPEAKS: an interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal. Political prisoner and award- winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks from his cell on Pennsylvania's death row.

In this far-ranging interview, Mumia talks about prisons, capitalism, politics, revolution and solidarity. The pamphlet also includes two articles— "The opressed nations, the poor and prisons" by Monica Moorehead, and "The death penalty & the Texas killing machine" by Teresa Gutierrez. Foreword by Larry Holmes.

Order on line at Leftbooks.org or from World View Forum, 55 West 17 Street, price: $2.99

Page 4 Oct. 16, 2003 www.workers.org

By John Catalinotto

Some investors and economists, andespecially the Bush administration, havetried to make much of September’s jobstatistics. However, their optimism isforced.

The Oct. 4 news was that in September,for the first time in eight months, morenew jobs were created than old onesdestroyed. The gain was 57,000.

Despite the gain in jobs, the officialunemployment rate stayed at 6.1 percent.

This puts the gain in perspective: SinceBush took office there has been a net lossof over 3 million jobs—1.1 million of themsince November 2001, when the recessionofficially ended.

All these numbers are estimates, basedon a survey sampling the available data.They are subject to revision as more dataare available.

Also, the official unemployment figuredoes not include the growing number ofworkers who have given up looking forjobs or work part-time. It completelyleaves out most undocumented workers inthe underground economy.

The official figures make jobs data lookhealthier than they are.

Economists agree that to reduce theunemployment rate, there would have tobe a net gain of over 150,000 jobs eachmonth.

In other words, one month’s increasedoth not a turnaround make.

People may wonder what it means tosay that “the recession officially ended” inNovember 2001, since job losses havecontinued during the “upswing.”

It means that U.S. businesses havebeen selling more goods and producing

more profits than they were before thattime. So, on the average, the owners havebeen doing better. This year many stockscame up in price, so stock owners are alsopleased.

On top of this, Bush has cut taxes sodeeply for the wealthy that they knowthey’re getting away with robbery. Thispleases them too.

Recovery only for bosses

For workers it has been a differentstory. There is more unemployment andfewer jobs. This has pushed down theaverage wage.

Without hiring more workers, bosseshave increased production in a number ofways.

They have increased productivitythrough technology, which has sometimesbeen combined with establishing new fac-tories in parts of the world where lowerwages can be paid. This has been espe-cially true with industrial jobs, which havedecreased in the United States over thepast 30 years.

Even those optimistic September fig-ures show that almost 30,000 industrialjobs disappeared last month. And sincethen Ford has announced another 7,700job cuts: 3,000 in the United States,another 3,000 at its plant in Genk,Belgium, and 1,700 in Germany. TheGenk workers are fighting back with astrike, burning tires and setting up bar-ricades as they try to save their jobs.

Management has also increased pro-ductivity through speedup and longerhours. At non-unionized firms, workersare even often expected to work unpaidovertime. For example, in fall 2001 oneNew York-based health-insurance firm,

Empire BlueCross BlueShield, increasedthe work week of its 1,900 New York Cityemployees from 37.5 to 40 hours—with noincrease in pay. Layoffs followed.

According to a report published by theAFL-CIO on Aug. 5, some 2.5 millionmanufacturing jobs have disappearedsince January 2001. Trade, transportationand utilities have lost 1 million. Profes-sional and business services lost 748,000.And information technology and telecom-munications lost 428,000 jobs.

Information technology—computer—jobs have decreased partly because thenew communications technology makes itpossible to hire lower-wage workersaround the world.

All transnational corporations searchfor the cheapest way to produce—whether the work is industrial or infor-mation technology. This is one compo-nent of imperialist “globalization”—thatis, the worldwide organization of pro-duction under the direction of thetransnational monopolies.

Capitalist competition and the driveto constantly increase profits make thishunt for low-wage workers relentless.The irony is that the same corporationsthat promote chauvinist nationalismwith hypocritical “buy American” cam-paigns have no qualms about hiringlabor anywhere in the world if it raisestheir profits.

The patriotic, flag-waving ideology pro-moted by management is thoroughly anti-worker. It allows the bosses to manipulateworkers here against their fellow workersabroad. Only solidarity among all work-ers—wherever they may be, documentedand undocumented—can help beat backthe bosses’ layoff plans.

‘High Tech, Low Pay’

In 1986 Sam Marcy, the founding chair-person of Workers World Party, wrote aprophetic Marxist analysis of develop-ments in the U.S. economy in the book“High Tech, Low Pay.” Labor statisticsavailable at that time showed that manu-facturing jobs—most of them unionizedand with relatively higher pay—were beingreplaced by lower-paid, mostly non-unionservice jobs.

Marcy noted that there was a downwardpressure on wages and an equalization ofpay across job types. This “leveling” wasbeing brought about not by raising lowwages but by pushing down higher ones.

The relatively privileged union jobsthen mainly held by white men were dis-appearing. The jobs they found broughtthem closer in pay to the more oppressedBlack and women workers.

Marcy concluded that it would be nec-essary to organize unorganized workersto maintain the workers’ living stan-dards. He observed that the growingnumber of women and people of color inthe work force was changing the charac-ter of the working class toward greatercombativeness.

Today one could add the large and class-conscious immigrant work force to thatmix, as shown by the demonstration ofover 100,000 immigrant workers inQueens, N.Y., on Oct. 4.

Today Black and other workers of colorand women are hit hardest by unemploy-ment. But this doesn’t erase the downwardpressure on all workers.

With more industrial and other layoffsannounced every day, a struggle will benecessary to save jobs. The need for soli-darity is more obvious than ever before.

It's still ‘High Tech, Low Pay’

Jobs data indicate need for organization, struggle

A scandal of epic proportions

Millions more in U.S. lose health careBy Sharon Eolis, R.N.

Recently a scheduled surgery for anunemployed, disabled worker who hadsuffered a severe hip injury on the job hadto be canceled.

This Latino worker, who is married andhas two children, was entitled to compen-sation for the injury. But he and his fam-ily had no health insurance. His unem-ployment insurance had also run out.

At a physical exam in preparation forthe compensation-covered hip surgery, hewas told he had high blood pressure and aheart problem and was wheezing from anasthma attack.

Before he could get his hip taken careof, he had to have a doctor treat his med-ical problems. But before he could get adoctor, he had to get Medicaid.

This is the kind of frustrating, andsometimes life-threatening, situation thatcould face millions of people who have nomedical insurance in the United States.

In September the Census Bureau issueda report titled “Health Insurance Coveragein the United States: 2002.” It revealedthat more than 43.6 million poor andworking people had no health insurance.Last year saw the biggest increase in theuninsured in a decade: 2.4 million people.

As the cost of health care spirals out ofcontrol, business owners have cut back on

coverage for their employees and passedon increased premiums to the workers.Many workers unable to pay the premi-ums have no health insurance.

The number of workers with employer-sponsored health coverage fell by 1.3 mil-lion in 2002, to 175.3 million, even as thetotal population grew by 3.9 million.

Ronald Polleck, executive director ofFamilies U.S.A., a consumer group, says:“It’s hard to grasp the magnitude of thenumber of uninsured. It exceeded theaggregate population of 24 states.”

The number of full-time workers with-out health insurance rose to 19.9 millionin 2002. That is an increase of 857,000over 2001.

Medicaid is a state-run program ofhealth coverage for the poor. Many stateshave cut back on Medicaid programsbecause of the Draconian reduction in fed-eral funds they receive for health and wel-fare, education and housing. Those hard-est hit are the working poor who barelyearn minimum wage, and are dispropor-tionately people of color.

About 8.5 million children were unin-sured in 2002. They account for 11.6 per-cent of the children under 18. When par-ents lose their jobs, their children are ofteneligible for Medicaid, but many states infiscal crisis are not pursuing enrollment ofchildren with no health care.

In 2002 more men lost their employer-sponsored coverage than women. Thenumber of uninsured men rose to 23.3million as women jumped to 20.2 million.Texas had the highest proportion of unin-sured workers—24.1 percent.

According to the Census Bureau report,one-third of the foreign-born populationwas uninsured—about 43 percent of non-citizens and 17.5 percent of naturalizedcitizens.

Some 45 percent of those living inpoverty, even though they had full-time

jobs, had no health coverage.The uninsured rate for African Amer-

icans—20.2 percent—was almost twicethat of “non-Hispanic whites.”

This growing misery for the workers inthe United States has nothing to do with alack of resources. The Bush administra-tion has just asked for $87 billion to con-tinue the war and occupation of Iraq andAfghanistan driven by profits for the oiland military industries.

Cuts on the federal level soon mean cutsat the state and local level. Medicaid, Medi-care, well-baby clinics, pre-natal clinics,child-care centers, low-income housing—all are in danger as budgets are cut to payfor imperialist war and occupation.

Larry Holmes, one of the leaders of theAct Now to Stop War & End Racism coali-tion, says: “Just as this report comes outthat an unprecedented number of peoplehave lost health insurance, we see theCongress preparing to vote $87 billionmore for the occupation and war. The gov-ernment is literally choosing to fund deathand destruction over health and life. It istravesties like this that are turning moreand more working people against Bush’sendless war.”

ANSWER expects many groups toaddress this issue at the Oct. 25 mobiliza-tions in Washington and San Francisco toend the war and occupation of Iraq.

WW PHOTO

Healthcare workers march in Washing-ton, D.C. last January against war inIraq and against the budget cuts

www.workers.org Oct. 16, 2003 Page 5

By Anya Mujarki-ConnollyQueens, N.Y.

On Oct. 4 the historic ImmigrantWorkers Freedom Ride—nine bus cara-vans carrying 1,000 immigrant workersfrom locales around the country—culmi-nated in a huge rally in Flushing MeadowsPark in Queens, N.Y. Queens is the mostdiverse county in the United States.

Rally organizers announced that over100,000 people attended the rally. Manyof them sacrificed a lot to be here.

These oppressed workers came fromall around the country with their unions,senior citizen groups, community orga-nizations and families. This was the firstsuccessful effort in recent memory tobring together people from labor, fromthe Asian, African, Latin American,Caribbean immigrant communities aswell as the Black community to uniteagainst the racist, right-wing, divisiveanti-immigrant laws.

Using the historic Freedom Rides of thecivil-rights movement of the 1960s asinspiration, the organizers first took to theroads on Sept. 20. The bus caravans trav-eled to 100 cities in 42 states.

Along the way the immigrant workersand their supporters drew attention tothis movement’s demands: legalizationand a road to U.S. citizenship for allimmigrant workers, the right to reunitefamilies, protection of workers’ rights onthe job without regard to legal status,and protection of the civil rights and civilliberties of all.

The mobilization originated with theleaders of the Hotel Employees andRestaurant Employees union, whichpushed the AFL-CIO to back it. HERE—along with other unions that count many

immigrant workers in their ranks such asUNITE, the Food and CommercialWorkers, and the Service Employees,especially its Local 1199—was the drivingforce behind the Freedom Ride.

But many struggles in the recent periodcompelled the labor movement to orga-nize this event. The struggles of the taxi-cab workers in New York, the efforts of theJustice for Janitors campaign and othersof the most militant organizing driveshave been led by immigrant workers.

Speakers at the rally included AFL-CIOPresident John Sweeney, HERE Local 100President Bill Granfield, 1199-SEIU Pre-sident Dennis Rivera, U.S. Rep. CharlesRangel of Harlem, Rep. John Lewis ofGeorgia, UNITE Vice President May Chen,Transport Workers Local 100 PresidentRoger Toussaint, HERE President JohnWilhem, HERE Vice President MariaElena Durazo; Farm Workers PresidentArturo Rodriguez and UNITE PresidentBruce Raynor.

Most of the speakers blamed the Bushadministration for the conditions facedby immigrant workers today. Somespeakers talked about the “AmericanDream” and said that success of workerscoming to this country is measured by“working hard.”

In reality, worldwide imperialism isdestroying the economies and eliminatingjobs in oppressed countries. This createsthe conditions that force millions of work-ers to migrate to this country.

Here, these workers are super-exploited by the same capitalist class thatexploits their labor and resources in theirhomeland.

There are an estimated 8 million to 10million undocumented workers in thiscountry. They contribute some $730 mil-

lion each year to theU.S. economy. Theseworkers face constantharassment, intimida-tion, discriminationand super-exploita-tion.

And it has all got-ten worse since theBush regime tookoffice, especially sinceSept. 11, 2001. Not todownplay the attackson immigrants underthe Clinton adminis-tration, but the attacks on immigrantssince Sept. 11 are the most repressive inrecent memory. They range from raidson work places and homes to punitivedetention and forced registration todeportation.

So it is within this context that theOct. 4 rally was most significant. Thiseffort proved to be the biggest mobiliza-tion on the domestic front since theBush regime took office.

The workers who took part in the rallyare some of the most oppressed workersin this country. They are also some of themost class-conscious workers, as theycome from countries dominated by U.S.imperialism.

These workers have witnessed first-hand the effects of imperialism. Theyunderstand that economic and militarycolonialism go hand in hand, as mostrecently witnessed in Iraq.

Thousands of leaflets in many differ-ent languages announcing the nationalprotest set for Oct. 25 in Washington,D.C., against the U.S. occupation of Iraqwere distributed on Oct. 4. Although thepolitical message put out by the rallyleadership was mainstream, the massesshowed that they were open to a moreprogressive message. More important,they demonstrated that they are ableand willing to mobilize for their politicaland economic rights as workers.

In 4-year contract

Autoworkers face plant closings & layoffsBy Martha GrevattCleveland

Members of the United Auto Workershave voted on a new four-year contract,ratifying a national agreement that grantsmajor concessions to the bosses ofGeneral Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler,Delphi and Visteon.

Ron Gettlefinger, who became theUAW president in 2002, put a differentspin on the concessionary agreements.He boasted that the contract “deliveredon health care, economic gains, workers’rights.”

Not true. It is a significant retreat fromthe 1999 contract and opens the door widefor massive layoffs and plant closings.

At least 10 plants in Michigan, Ohio,Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Alabama,New York and New Jersey will be perma-nently closed or sold. More will close ifthey do not become “competitive.” Addi-tional job losses will result from cuttingentire shifts and eliminating classifica-tions.

At DaimlerChrysler, for example, a jointunion-management task force has beenset up to develop the means to eliminateup to 5,000 out of 12,000 skilled-tradespositions. After the contract was ratified,400 UAW-represented designers learnedtheir jobs are on the chopping block.

Fifty thousand union jobs could betaken out of the domestic economy.These closings and layoffs will be devas-tating, not only to workers but to theircommunities.

Ford plans to close a van plant inLorain, Ohio, a town dependent on steeland auto with big African-American andLatino communities. The plant is in acounty with one of the state’s highestunemployment rates.

Baltimore faces a shutdown of a GMassembly plant. Related industries such asrubber, glass, and other suppliers will cutback on their work forces.

On the economic front, the contractfreezes wages for the first two years.Workers at Delphi and Visteon, which GMand Ford spun off under the 1999 negoti-ations, will work under a two-tiered wagestructure. New hires will start at $10 anhour less than current employees. Futureretirees will see only a modest increase inpensions over the previous contract. Forthe first time since the 1960s, currentretirees will have their pensions frozen,receiving only a lump sum each year.Company payments into the union pen-sion fund will decrease.

Wall Street wants more

“Does this make the industry even a lit-tle more competitive? No,” said MaryannKeller, an auto analyst and former execu-tive who ran the Priceline.com automotivedivision. “This contract does nothing toeven make a slight dent in the fundamen-tal problems.” (New York Times, Sept. 23)

“We believe the new contracts will notmaterially bolster the automakers’ com-petitive positions,” said an auto analystfrom Standard and Poor, mirroring simi-lar remarks from analysts at Goldman

Sachs and Deutsche Bank. (Detroit News,Sept. 23)

Why would any worker vote for such acontract? Gettlefinger appealed to thosemembers who will be least hurt by thesettlement. Retirement buyout offers ofup to $70,000 and the option to transferto other plants left workers asking,“What choice do we have?”

Health benefits, which have comeunder repeated attack in negotiations,remain virtually untouched. A $3,000signing bonus made it very tempting forsome workers whose jobs appear secureto vote “yes.” Workers at plants notslated for closing are protected by lan-guage preventing the corporation “fromclosing, selling, spinning off, consolidat-ing or otherwise disposing of any plant,asset or business unit during the term ofthis agreement.”

On the shop floor, however, the rankand file are concerned. They don’t like thejob cuts. They worry about a new, stricterattendance policy that could lead to morefirings.

While they can live without a raise fortwo years, they don’t think it’s right—notwhen the top executives got big raises andbonuses this year.

“What aren’t they telling us?” asked oneworker talking with others during lunchbreak at a DaimlerChrysler plant.

While the contracts passed with a clearmajority, support was hardly unanimous.A handful of locals at each of the five com-panies rejected the contract.

Only 58 percent of skilled trades at

DaimlerChrysler backed the contract. Ata Delphi plant in Coopersville, Mich.,workers trashed the contract because ofthe two-tier provision for new hires. Asone worker put it, “When there’s noequality there’s no solidarity.”

This is a critical point. The Big Threewill try to use the contracts’ divisivenature to divide the workers.

The two-tiered wage structure isinherently unequal. There will be resent-ment and confusion in the open plantstoward workers from closed plants, whotransfer with full seniority and bumpworkers with less seniority. It willdemand great sacrifices from familieswhose members face a job loss or a moveto another city.

The Big Three bosses cried that theywere losing money and losing marketshare to foreign competition. Theywanted the UAW’s help to become more“competitive” and “return to profitabil-ity.”

They got the UAW leaders to swallowtheir line and push it on to the rank-and-file: that it’s not labor vs. managementbut the U.S. industry versus Toyota andothers.

Unbelievably, they got Gettlefingerand his negotiating team to cooperate incutting employment costs. The unionpresident said, “One of our goals hasbeen to bring this industry together.”

Auto executives, including GM ChairRick Waggoner, praised Gettlefinger’s“professionalism.” (New York Times,

Continued on page 7

Delegation fromImmigrant WorkersFreedom Ride greetsthe rally from thestage

WW PHOTO: DEIRDRE GRISWOLD

100,000 rally for immigrant rights

Page 6 Oct. 16, 2003 www.workers.org

Oct. 7) Should he adhere to this policy, itwould represent an abject failure ofWashington’s main and most dangerousstrategy against the Palestinian nationalmovement.

The quagmire deepens in Iraq

Associating with Sharon’s attack onSyria also allows Bush to keep alive hisaggressive, war-like posture in the MiddleEast, despite the deepening quagmire inIraq.

On the diplomatic front, Washingtonannounced that it was probably going tohave to abandon its efforts to get a resolu-tion through the UN taking responsibilityfor Iraq. It could not convince France, Ger-many or Russia to support a prolongedU.S. occupation. Washington was facingeither a close split or an open defeat in theSecurity Council. The decisive momentafter two weeks of negotiations came whenSecretary General Kofi Annan lined upwith the Europeans and refused to agreeto provide a UN cover for a U.S. occupation.

Another complication for the U.S. arosewhen the Turkish parliament finally votedto send troops to Iraq. The puppet, U.S.-

By Julie FryJersey City, N.J.

Students and activists from around thecountry will assemble at Rutgers Univer-sity in New Brunswick, N.J., Oct. 10-12 toattend the Third North American Con-ference of the Palestine Solidarity Move-ment—and to defend the conference froma serious attack by right-wing opponentsof the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Conference supporters plan todemonstrate Oct. 11 to protest RutgersUniversity’s Sept. 12 decision to cancelthe conference.

The Rutgers cancellation announce-ment came after a months-long racistcampaign of threats and intimidation byZionist and right-wing forces throughoutthe East Coast.

Workers World spoke with Charlotte

Kates, one of the leaders of the studentgroup New Jersey Solidarity, about theconference and about the attacks she hasbeen facing.

WW: Why do you think it is importantto hold a national conference for thePalestinian liberation movement in theUnited States right now?

Kates: The struggle for Palestinian lib-eration is very critical right now. This isillustrated by the ever-increasing attackson Palestinians and Palestinian commu-nities. The conference is coming at a timewhen it is critical that forces mobilize tostand with the Palestinians because theforces mobilized against them have a lotof military, political, and economic power.

Yet, in the face of that power, the Pales-tinians have not conceded in over 45 yearsof struggle. It’s really important to standwith the Palestinians in the U.S. because

the U.S. bears responsibility for crimescommitted against the Palestinian people.

WW: Why do you think the conferencehas been attacked so viciously?

Kates: For years now they’ve been tar-geting the Palestinian people [in Pales-tine] and trying to eliminate their exis-tence through expulsions, through bomb-ings, through denying their very existence.The international movement has beenunder attack in the same way, trying tomake it non-existent through campaignsof intimidation and fear.

Just as the Palestinian people have notsuccumbed to this, the international soli-darity movement will not succumb to thisbecause the Palestinian people’s strugglefor liberation is directly relevant to thestruggle of people around the world forliberation and justice in their own com-munities.

WW: How have these attacks on theconference and on New Jersey Solidarityaffected you personally?

Kates: It’s been a crazy time. There arethese real attempts to try to single peopleout and make examples of them and try toisolate them from people in the movementand make them seem unacceptable. Sothere’s this crazy stuff like my picturebeing put up all over the place.

The harassing emails, the people whosee mock posters about the conferenceand then email me. Turning on talk radioin the morning and listening to people talkabout whether Charlotte Kates supportssuicide bombings.

It’s really the same kind of harassmentthat people have been seeing around thecountry where people are being targetedfor doing Palestine solidarity work. Thegoal is to make people afraid of doing thiskind of work because when people seethese attacks they are worried about theirjob prospects, their safety.

I don’t blame them. Two days after thearticle came out in the New York Timesabout me, I lost my job and I know that’swhy. People have these fears and it’s anattempt to play on these fears and destroythe movement.

WW: Will the conference go on thisweekend in New Jersey?

Kates: Yes. Hundreds and hundredsof people have already registered. Therewill be people coming from across thecountry. We’re opening Friday night[Oct. 10] with a plenary. Through Sat-urday and Sunday we will have plenariesand workshops on a host of differenttopics related to the Palestinian libera-tion struggle. There will be an organizingsession on Saturday for passing resolu-tions and making decisions about wherethe movement is going.

On Saturday, Oct. 11, there will be ademonstration on Cooper Greene, theoriginal site of the conference at Rutgers,to protest the violations of freedom ofspeech by the university and express oursupport for the Palestinian people.

appointed Iraqi Governing Council thenvoted against bringing in Turkish troops.The U.S. had bribed the Turkish govern-ment with an $8.5-billion loan to send thetroops, but this thoroughly antagonizedthe only grouping within Iraqi society thatsupported the U.S. invasion—the Kurdishleadership. Furthermore, the Iraqis hadbeen colonized by the Turkish OttomanEmpire before the British took over in1917. The prospect of adding Turkishtroops to a U.S. occupation is bound toprovoke further resistance.

Meanwhile, three more U.S. soldierswere killed on Oct. 7 in two separate bomb-ings, one in Baghdad and the other 25miles south in al-Haswah. According to theOct. 8 NY Times,this brought to 320 thenumber of troops the Pentagon says havebeen killed in combat in Kuwait and Iraqsince March 19, 92 of them since Bushdeclared the war over on May 1. In addi-tion, there have been 119 “non-hostile”deaths since the war began, the vast major-ity—94—being registered since May 1.

Also on Oct. 7, a mortar or rocket-pro-pelled grenade left a large crater in theForeign Ministry compound and there

was a rebellion in Baghdad of former Iraqiintelligence officers demanding jobs whohurled stones at U.S. troops.

“Across the city, U.S. soldiers were metby a demonstration of Shiite Muslims afterclosing a mosque and allegedly arrestingthe imam. Late in the afternoon, U.S.troops fired percussion grenades andshots in the air to disburse the crowd,which grew by the hour. By nightfall, anestimated 200 American troops backed byhelicopters and at least six M1A2 tankshad sealed off the area. ...” (WashingtonPost, Oct. 8)

And in the northern town of Baiji, “300U.S.-appointed Iraqi police fled the townfor an American base nearby. Theyrejected orders from U.S. officers to returnto Baiji, saying that they would be killed.”(Independent [London], Oct. 7) They wererunning from protesters after having shotfour people at an anti-U.S. demonstration.

When asked about all this, L. PaulBremer, the head of the Occupation Au-thority, replied: “The situation is certainlynot getting worse, that is nonsense.”

Interview with Rutgers student organizer

‘The Palestine Solidarity Conference will go on’

develop chemical, biological and nuclearweapons.” (www.salon.com, Oct. 7)However, Bolton had been scheduled togive similar testimony this past July butwas stopped by a “revolt” among intelli-gence experts, who thought his plannedremarks “inflated the progress Syria madein its weapons programs. ... The CIA’sobjections and comments alone ran to 35or 40 pages.” (Miami Herald, July 15)

The Sharon government could not havemissed the fact that Bush allowed the slan-derous, provocative testimony inSeptember.

Bush’s emphatic public support forSharon’s provocation diverts attentionfrom the collapse of his “Road Map.”During this crisis, the newly appointedPalestinian prime minister, AhmedQureia, denounced the suicide bombingbut also rejected U.S. demands for anattack on the resistance. “We will not gofor a civil war,” he said. “It is not in theinterest of our people. … I will not listento the Americans. I will listen to ournational rights.” (Independent [London],

Bush hails Israeli attack on Syria

FREE PALEST INE ALL IANCE STATEMENT..

‘We mourn the loss of Edward W. Said’The Free Palestine Alliance in the

United States mourns the passing of oneof Palestine’s beloved own, ProfessorEdward W. Said, and extends its deepestcondolences to the entire Palestinian andArab people, the international commu-nity, and to the Said family and friends forthis monumental loss.

As a Native Son, Professor Said has nar-rated and championed our collective strug-gle as a people with a unique integrity anda deep passion. The legacy of this Pales-tinian Arab fighter for justice transcendsscholarly and intellectual work, as he hadpositioned himself within the overall move-ment for liberation that repeatedly chal-lenges imperial and colonial domination.

Emerging from the discourse of inter-nationalism, Edward Said leveraged, chal-lenged, and further developed works ofsuch greats as Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fan-on and Ghassan Kanafani, and hasexchanged discourse with modern Arab

political and intellectual leaders such asMahdi Amel and Sadek Jalal al-Athem.Said was a probing thinker who intro-duced a systematic critique of “Orient-alism” and a qualitative deconstruction ofempire and cultural imperialism. Saidchallenged the obsessive dehumanizationby orientalists and, recently, neo-orien-talists of a fantasy “East” and a fabricatedworld of exotic make-belief. He belongedto a school of thinker activists who real-ized that the struggle for justice is also abattle of narratives, where culture andresistance are inseparable.

For the Palestinian Intifada, he was ason belonging to non-other; never losingsight that liberation is an imperative must.He stood clear on our return to our homes,recognized the structural and fundamen-tal fallacies of the Oslo discourse, andnever wavered in the struggle againstZionism and bigotry. In belonging to ourpeople’s movement, Edward Said threw a

stone at the Israeli forces from the once-occupied southern Lebanon and sup-ported divestment as a means to endingIsraeli Apartheid.

Edward Said engaged opinions andstrategies that differed with his own withgrace and political maturity, and as henavigated the difficult path of the Pales-tinian liberation movement over severaldecades, he held criticism and self-evalu-ation as paramount—all while recognizingand respecting the moral weight of theChildren of the Stones and the yearning ofthe dispossessed who remain exiled incamps 55 years later.

Having soared After the Last Sky, it isthe likes of Palestine’s Edward Said thatgive hope to the future.

With gratitude to an undying cham-pion, we stand in respect and pledge tocarry on.

The Free Palestine Alliance-USASeptember 25, 2003

Continued from page 1

www.workers.org Oct. 16, 2003 Page 7

Sept. 23)What cannot be justified is the passive

and collaborative position the UAW lead-ership imposed on the rank and file, whichled to the ratification. Tragically, themembership voted to eliminate their ownjobs, and turned over the fate of some750,000 active and retired workers to theself-serving class interests of the corporatetycoons.

The loss of thousands of additional jobswill add to the steady decline in theUAW’s Big Three membership ranks.Membership stood at 700,000 in 1979. Itcould drop to 250,000 during the life ofthe contract.

Bitter global competition is behind thiscrisis to cut labor costs. The competitionled to overproduction, tremendousincreases in productivity and speedup.Also, the Big Three have recklesslyexpanded their overseas plants and invest-ment in Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Never have so many cars been producedin so few hours. Roughly a year ago,DaimlerChrysler workers were scolded by

plant managers because it took, on theaverage, over 40 hours to build a vehicle.Now that average is down to 28 hours, andworkers are told it is still not good enough.

Resistance to speedup, mass layoffs andplant closings is still alive today. Uponlearning of Ford’s scheme to eliminate3,000 out of 9,000 jobs, Ford workers inGenk, Belgium, carried out a splendidstruggle. Starting Oct. 2, the union hasbeen blocking gates, burning debris andtires and stopping deliveries to the Fordfactory. On Oct. 6 workers staged a 24-hour work stoppage. They plan to keep thegates blocked. Workers said they would“hit Ford where it hurts.”

A group in the U.S. called the UAWSolidarity Coalition has been formed tourge members to “Vote NO until youKNOW.” More opposition is bound todevelop as this disastrous contractunfolds.

Last year UAW Local 122 sent a resolu-tion to the National Bargaining Conven-tion pointing out that workers in Europealready work fewer hours per week andhave longer vacations. The resolutioncalled for a shorter work week for U.S.workers with no cut in pay. While the

Convention resolutionvaguely alluded to thisdemand, the current con-tract provides for its oppo-site—more cars per hour,more layoffs and plantclosings.

The issue of a shorterwork week with no loss inpay is long overdue. It was60 years ago—on July 3,1943—that the UAW’sInternational ExecutiveBoard raised the slogan of30 hours work with noreduction in pay. It is timeto fight for the shorterwork week and restore thevigor and vitality of thoseyears that made the UAWa great and powerfulunion.

The author, a member of UAW Local 122, has been askilled tradeswoman at DaimlerChrysler for 16 years.

Workers at the Ford plant in Genk,Belgium, refuse to accept the loss of 3,000of their 9,000 jobs without a fight.Instead, since Ford announced job cuts onOct. 2, black smoke from burning tiresand other debris could be seen rising fromthe area of the Ford factory where work-ers blocked gates and stopped deliveriesto the factory.

On Oct. 6 the workers staged a 24-hourstrike, forcing Ford management intonegotiations on Oct. 7. The gate blockagecontinues.

Harrie Dewitte is a doctor with“Doctors for the People” at a clinic in aworking-class area in Genk. He is also anactivist with the Belgian Workers Partycoordinating support for the struggle inGenk. After the day-long strike, Dewittewrote a public letter pointing out thatFord had signed two contracts. Ford madean agreement with the unions on Oct. 23,2002, pledging to keep all the jobs at Genkintact until 2006. Also, in return for taxand other breaks of 53 million Euros ($62million) from the Flemish authorities,

Ford promised to invest 900 millionEuros ($1.05 billion) in the region.Dewitte noted that by breaking these con-tracts Ford was breaking the law. Hecalled on the Belgian and regional Flemishgovernments and courts to hold Ford tothe agreements.

DeWitte also called for solidarity notonly among the 9,000 Belgian, Italian andTurkish-born workers at Genk but of allauto workers throughout Belgium, and tomobilize the region around the Genkplant to fight to save the jobs. The Flemishprovince, called Limbourg, has alreadysuffered from the earlier closings of coalmines and then the Philips Electronicplant in 2002.

Ford management has admitted that ashutdown at Genk would affect its pro-duction throughout Europe. This includesplants in Germany, Spain and Britain.Ford plans another 1,700 job cuts inGermany.

An email solidarity note for the Genkworkers can be sent to [email protected].

—John Catalinotto

Venezuelan laborleader hosted in LASpecial to Workers World

The International Action Centerand Global Women’s Strike sponsoreda well attended meeting and recep-tion in Los Angeles on Oct. 4 forPedro Eussie (third from the right), arepresentative of Venezuela’s newlyformed labor federation, CUTV.Eussie is presently touring the U.S.The event expressed solidarity withthe ongoing Bolivarian revolutionlead by Venezuelan president, HugoChávez, who remains a target of U.S.imperialist aggression.

WW PHOTO: IAN THOMPSON

On Sept. 30, the Chicago Coalition against War and Racism organized hundreds ofactivists outside of the Sheraton Hotel to protest President George W. Bush’s presenceat a $2,000-a-plate fundraising lunch. The main demands were: “Bring the troopshome now! End the occupation of Iraq!” Many more activists were illegally kept awayfrom the protest site by police. As the luncheon ended, scores of well-to-do Bush sup-porters leaving the event were challenged by protestors chanting anti-war slogans and yelling “Shame!”

—Story and photo by Lou Paulsen

Hundreds target Bush

Workers at Ford-Genkfight back

On the microphone is Sister Dorothy Pagosa of the Eighth Day Center for Justice, who recently served a three-month prison sentence for protesting at the School of the Americas.

CHICAGO.

Continued from page 5

Autoworkers face plantclosings & layoffs

END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

BRING THETROOPS HOME

SATURDAY

OCT25MASS MARCH11 am • Washington Monument

(17th St. & Constitution Ave. NW)

A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION(ACT NOW TO STOP WAR & END RACISM)

www.internationalANSWER.orge-mail: [email protected]

DC 202.544.3389 NY 212.633.6646

CREDIT: SOLIDAIRE

Ford workers at Genk, Belgium block gates with burning debris in battle to savetheir jobs on Oct. 2.

BELGIUM.

Co-sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition and UFPJ (United for Peace and Justice)

Page 8 Oct. 16, 2003 www.workers.org

absolutely clear when he stated: “Our pol-icy with regard to Haiti is plain. We nevercan acknowledge her independence.”

The embargo let U.S. merchants dic-tate the terms of trade between the twocountries, establishing a neocolonialrelationship. Jefferson and the otherracist slave owners kept the UnitedStates from recognizing Haiti until theU.S. Civil War ended slavery here in1863. Before that time the U.S. slaveowners presented the racist argumentthat Haiti’s devastating economicdecline was an example of what happenswhen Africans govern themselves. Theseslave owners did not mention thatHaiti’s problems were caused by crueland punishing neocolonial economicpolicies and actions.

Even in the midst of a civil war foughtover the existence and expansion of slav-ery in the United States, outright racistactions were common in Washington. InApril 1862, when Sen. Charles Sumnerraised the issue of recognizing Haiti andLiberia, representatives of border stateslike Maryland and Kentucky objected tothe presence of Black diplomats inWashington. (For more information, see“The Struggle for the Recognition of Haitiand Liberia as Independent Republics,”Charles H. Wesley, The Journal of NegroHistory, Vol. 2, Oct., 1917.)

French & European recognition

In the early 1800s, Haiti’s governmentstill felt threatened by France even after ithad crushed Napoleon’s army in 1802. In1821 France offered internal self-ruleunder a French protectorate. This wasessentially what Louverture thought hehad won in 1801.

Haiti had given asylum and essentialmilitary and material help to SimónBolívar in his struggle to free LatinAmerica. But Spain still possessed Cubaand Puerto Rico, had claims over the east-ern portion of the island of Hispaniola,now the Dominican Republic, and stillprofited from slavery. Furthermore, Haitifaced the hostility of the United Stateseven from sectors like the Northern bour-geoisie, who weren’t tied to slavery butwere still thoroughly racist.

In return for official recognition as anindependent nation, President Jean-Pierre Boyer offered France 150 million

On eve of 200th anniversary of Haitian independence

A history of U.S. embargoesgold francs indemnity and custom dutieshalf that of any other nation. This was atremendous sum, estimated by the presentHaitian government to be $21 billion incurrent dollars. After a show of force by theFrench navy, Haiti swiftly borrowed 24million francs to pay the first installment.

The money was earmarked to indem-nify the slave owners and their heirs fortheir “losses” during Haiti’s revolution.For Haitians, the freedom they had wonwith their blood had to be also paid for incash.

After France’s recognition, GreatBritain and the other European powersquickly followed suit. But the UnitedStates refused.

France’s financial hold on Haiti contin-ued until the first U.S. occupation in 1915.This hold was so complete that even whenHaiti set up its Banque Nationale in the1880s, it was done with French capital andFrench bank officers.

During the 1800s Haiti had two neo-colonial overlords: France and the UnitedStates, both of which extracted as much asthey could from the country, blaming itseconomic problems on what the Haitianswere forced to do to survive.

Current U.S. boycott

In the 19th century, the United Statesand the European powers used Haiti’sextreme diplomatic isolation and the dev-astation resulting from its revolutionagainst the French slave owners to controlHaiti. In the late 20th and early 21st cen-turies, the United States uses Haiti’s direpoverty.

Haiti is the poorest country in theWestern Hemisphere by any measure.

Haiti’s debt was $302 million in 1980.In 1997 it was almost $1.1 billion, which isalmost 40 percent of its Gross NationalProduct. The value of its exports hasfallen to 62 percent of 1987 levels. Itshould be listed as a severely indebtedlow-income country but the InternationalMonetary Fund and the World Bank haverefused to do so.

More than 80 percent of the people inthe countryside regularly don’t get enoughto eat. Some 50 percent of the people areilliterate. Seventy percent are unem-ployed. Life expectancy is 56 years andfalling. Infant mortality is more than dou-ble the Latin American and Caribbean

average. (Figures from PAPDA—theHaitian Platform to Advocate for anAlternative Development)

Few people in Haiti have a reliable sup-ply of clean water and those who do buy itby the jug.

The U.S. government put an embargoon loans to Haiti from the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank and got the EuropeanUnion, another large donor to Haiti, to dothe same. The United States took thisaction because in the 2000 elections,Washington’s favored candidates lost.

When U.S. Secretary of State ColinPowell spoke at the Organization ofAmerican States meeting in Santiago,Chile, in June, he warned that the OASwould re-evaluate its role in Haiti if theAristide government did not conform toOAS resolutions about the organization ofHaiti’s elections. This was also a warningto Latin American countries to follow theU.S. policy on Haiti.

The United States wants to rig Haitianelections so that its favored candidateswin. In the 19th century, it used gunboatsand threats to assure victory. Now it’smore convenient to hide the hand thatthrows the rock behind an organizationlike the OAS.

But Haiti is not Florida, where GeorgeW. Bush stole the last presidential elec-tion. The first election that Aristide con-tested in 1990 was in fact more than justan election. It was a mass movement, aLavalas flood to elect a people’s candi-date—and it swept all the encrustationsand debris left over from decades of for-eign interference and U.S.-backed Duval-ierist terror.

Aristide’s election was a shock to U.S.reliance on rigged cosmetic elections toput in politicians who will enforce neo-lib-eral capitalist exploitation.

Despite a 1991 military coup to oustAristide that cost over 5,000 lives and allsorts of CIA skullduggery, popular sup-port for Aristide remained strong. He andhis party won the 2000 election. The realreasons the U.S. and European govern-ments are withholding aid from Haiti areto force concessions out of Aristide or top-ple his administration should he not sub-mit to imperialist demands— and to pun-ish the Haitian masses as was done in the19th century for daring to make a revolu-tion that ended slavery.

European Summit

Workers, anti-militaristsmarch in Rome

them and thousands of red flags.An army of 10,000 police guarded the

ministers’ meeting.Another march through downtown

Rome estimated by its European UnionFederation organizers at 250,000 gath-ered Europe’s union workers, whodemanded a Europe with social supportfor the population.

The EU is set to adopt a “constitution”that includes developing a special militaryrapid deployment force of 60,000 troopsto intervene worldwide. It also attacksworkers’ rights and lays out plans toreduce social services, while excludingimmigrants to Europe from the rights itrecognizes for citizens. While the EU lead-

ers plan walls to keep out people, thealliance provides for the free flow of capi-tal to allow easier domination by themonopoly multinational corporations.

Though the unions and the anti-global-ization groups marched separately, theysent speakers to each other’s rallies. Thenext major anti-war action in Italy is set forOct. 12 when people will march on Assisi.

Meanwhile the three major union con-federations in Italy have called a generalstrike for Oct. 24 to protest changes inpensions. The Berlusconi governmentwants to extend work time from 35 to 40years before workers can collect their pen-sions. Governments in France and Austriahave cut pensions, and it is beingattempted in Germany.

By G. Dunkel

In 1806, Haiti was diplomatically iso-lated. It had audaciously declared inde-pendence two years before, after crushingNapoleon’s French army sent to re-enslave it. But no country in the world rec-ognized its independence. CertainlyFrance, which had just suffered a majorblow to its fortunes and prestige, refused.Spain still had its slave-based colonialempire in the Caribbean and LatinAmerica. Great Britain, at that time thepredominant world power, worried overits plantations in Jamaica, just 75 milesfrom Haiti, whose profits also dependedon the brutal super-exploitation ofenslaved Africans.

There was substantial trade betweenthe United States and Haiti, even after theHaitian revolution ended slavery. Haitisold coffee, molasses, sugar, cotton, hidesand so on and bought dried cod, cloth,hardware and other bulk commodities.But Thomas Jefferson, the slave-owning,slave-selling president of the UnitedStates, was terrified by the successful slaverebellion and went so far as to call Tous-saint Louverture’s army “cannibals.”Louverture was a leader of Haiti’s libera-tion struggle.

Jefferson gave backhanded support tothe Haitian struggle when its successes ledFrance to consider selling Louisiana. Butthat was just a temporary maneuver. Hewas implacably opposed to Haitian inde-pendence.

He tried hard to prevent any contactbetween the United States and Haiti.Jefferson called upon Congress, which hisparty controlled, to abolish trade betweenthe two countries. France and Spain, twomajor colonial powers in the Caribbean atthe time, were also enforcing boycotts ofHaitian trade. Consequently, partially in1805 and finally in 1806, trade betweenthe United States and Haiti was formallyshut down.

Trade still continued on an unofficialbasis. U.S. ships could call at Haitianports, but Haitian ships were excludedfrom U.S. ports. This decimated theHaitian economy, already weakened by 12years of hard fighting and much colonialsabotage.

In the 1820s, South Carolina Sen.Robert V. Hayne made the U.S. position

By John Catalinotto

On Oct. 4 in Rome, some 100,000 anti-globalization and anti-militarizationactivists marched toward the meetingplace of the opening conference of theEuropean Union. The European leaderstake turns presiding over the EuropeanUnion. On Oct. 4 it was Italy’s turn, andits right-wing president, media magnateSilvio Berlusconi, began presiding overthe EU for the next period.

A banner leading the demonstrationread, “You are 15, we are 400 million—fora Europe without war and racism, andwith rights.” The crowd held thousands ofrainbow flags with the word “peace” on

Youthsdemonstrate

in Rome Oct. 4

www.workers.org Oct. 16, 2003 Page 9

By Fred Goldstein

As the Bush administration’s quest forempire has collapsed into a struggle toextricate itself from a quagmire,Washington has been forced to resort toasking for aid. The White House and thePentagon never contemplated facing sig-nificant guerrilla resistance and wide-spread hatred and resentment of a pro-longed military occupation. It expected itscampaign of “shock and awe” to deliver apassively compliant population.

“Be careful about how you treat peopleon the way up, because you will meet themon the way down” now applies directly toWashington’s predicament. Having con-temptuously dubbed France and Germanythe “old Europe,” and having insinuatedthat the United Nations was “irrelevant,”Bush has now been trying to seek theirassistance.

This has created a debate over the roleof the UN and whether it would be progres-sive for it to assume a major role in Iraq. Theconfusion comes partly from the refusal ofthe Security Council to sanction the warback in March. This led to the false ideathat France, Germany and Russia are some-how anti-war and therefore UN interven-tion can be beneficial to the Iraqi people.

Simple reflection on all the death, suf-fering and destruction caused by the UN-sponsored Gulf War of 1991 and the 12years of sanctions approved by theSecurity Council, as well as the completelypermissive attitude of the Security Counciltowards the persistent bombings in the“no fly” zones, should be enough to end thedebate over a possible UN role in Iraq.

But from the broader perspective, theUN has cultivated an image of peace-lov-ing humanitarianism and neutralism thathas been used for years as a cover for themost one-sided imperialist interventions.

UN created for empire

The United Nations was conceived dur-ing World War II and negotiated by Pre-sident Franklin Delano Roosevelt, head ofthe new, rising U.S. empire, and PrimeMinister Winston Churchill, head of thedeclining British empire. They were com-pelled to bring the Soviet Union into thenegotiations. Not only had it survived theonslaught of Hitler, but the Red Army sup-plemented by Soviet guerrillas ultimatelydefeated the Nazis and chased their deci-mated forces back to Berlin. The Frenchimperialists were included in the negotia-tions once the Nazis were defeated. TheChinese puppet regime of Chiang Kai-shekwas also brought into the inner circle.

The UN was part of the effort to regi-ment the world by U.S. imperialism and itsdependent junior partner in London. Itwas placed in New York City, a limousineride away from Wall Street and a quickplane ride from Washington. Symbol-ically, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated$8.5 million to buy the land for it.

Its first 50 members were mostly thevictorious European powers, dependen-cies of the British Commonwealth, and theU.S. and 20 of its Latin American clientstates. The socialist camp had four mem-bers. There was no representation what-soever of the anti-colonial struggle.

It was founded officially in October1945, two months after President HarryTruman had ordered the two atomicbombs to be dropped on Japan. Thefounding of the UN was coupled with thesetting up of the U.S.-dominatedInternational Monetary Fund and theWorld Development Bank. Thus, the U.S.

government entered the world stage as anuclear and economic super-power.Washington’s aim was to use the UN orga-nization to pressure the Soviet Union andregiment the world.

UN cover for intervention inPalestine, Korea, Congo

Virtually every significant military,political and economic intervention car-ried out by the UN has been in the serviceof imperialism. Its first major act was thepartition of Palestine and the creation ofthe Zionist state of Israel. In fact, the firstsubcommittee created by the UN was theUnited Nations Special Committee onPalestine (UNSCOP).

The question of Palestine was pushedinto the UN in 1947 by the British, at theurging of Washington. British imperialismwas retreating from its promise to set upa Zionist state because it had been weak-ened by World War II and was in no con-dition to deal with the rebellions in its owncolonies. UNSCOP, which had not oneArab or African member, recommendedthat the British Mandate in Palestine bedivided to give 55 percent of the land to aZionist state. This was later approved bythe U.S.-dominated General Assembly.

The Soviet government, unfortunatelyand tragically, did not block this act. It vio-lated international solidarity and recog-nized Israel.

The Zionists, with U.S. financial andpolitical support, continued their struggleon the ground to take far more than 55percent of the land, ultimately creating750,000 Palestinian refugees. Thus, whilethe oppressed peoples of the world wereopening their struggle against colonial-ism, the UN was being used as a cover byWashington to establish a beachhead inthe oil-rich Middle East.

Shortly thereafter the UN was used as apolitical umbrella for the U.S.-led mobi-lization of world capitalism to roll back thesocialist revolution on the Korean penin-sula. After World War II, the progressiveand socialist forces in the south, organizedin the Committees for Preparation of

National Independence, were preparingfor the unification of the country under aregime of national liberation. Fearing aunited socialist Korea, Washington triedto permanently divide the country by set-ting up a puppet government in the southand holding rigged elections, after havingsuppressed the people’s committees.

Following the Palestine example, theU.S. put the matter into the UN in 1947and created the United NationsTemporary Commission on Korea (UNT-COK). This body promptly recognized thepuppet regime in Seoul as the only lawfulgovernment in Korea, completely reject-ing the socialist government in Pyong-yang. Orchestrated by U.S. Gen. DouglasMacArthur, the Syngman Rhee regimecarried out years of provocation againstthe north. Finally, war broke out in June1950. President Truman quickly ran to geta UN mandate for a devastating invasionand war to destroy the socialist govern-ment. Five million Koreans were killedand not one building above two stories wasleft standing in the north.

As the anti-colonial movement wassweeping Africa, Belgium was pressuredinto granting the Congo its political inde-pendence on June 30, 1960. As the nation-alist leader Patrice Lumumba took over asprime minister, the Belgian colonialistsstimulated a mutiny in the army, pro-moted the detachment of mineral-richKatanga province and in July sent introops. Their goal was to further destabi-lize the new regime and retake the coun-try on the grounds that the Congolese were“not ready” to rule themselves.

The issue was pushed into the SecurityCouncil. Lumumba at first thought hecould get help from the UN. But while theUN dispatched a military force to theCongo, it refused to stop the Belgianinvaders. Lumumba appealed to theSoviet Union and the socialist bloc for aid.

The UN mission in the Congo was sup-posedly neutral, but was directed first byRalph Bunche and then by AndrewCordier, both former State Departmentofficials. When the Soviets and other

Palestine to the Congo

How imperialism has used the UNsocialist-bloc countries prepared to sendaid, the UN forces blocked the ports andairfields to their ships and planes.Lumumba was unable to move his troopsto stop the dismembering of the Congo. Hewas eventually assassinated. And whenthe smoke cleared, General Mobutu andpro-imperialist forces had gained controlof the country.

The only country in history that ever leftthe UN was Indonesia. On Jan. 1, 1965, thenationalist leader President Sukarnopulled out of the UN after it gave member-ship to the neocolonial regime of Malaysia,which was sponsored by British imperial-ism. Threatened with the loss of U.S. aid,Sukarno issued his famous rejoinder: “TheU.S. can go to hell with its aid!”

With the Vietnam War raging, anti-U.S.hatred in Asia was heating up. WhenSukarno implied that there should be ananti-imperialist united nations, Washing-ton took it very seriously because it sig-naled the possibility of another massiveupheaval in the region. The People’sRepublic of China was already in a revo-lutionary phase and the Vietnamese werefighting to complete their liberation.

The prospect of an anti-imperialistbreak with the United Nations intensifiedpreparations by the CIA for the overthrowof Sukarno and the destruction of theIndonesian Communist Party, the largestcommunist party outside of the socialistcountries. By November of that year theCIA and the right wing of the military, ledby General Suharto, had struck and beguna massacre that would take the lives of amillion people.

Sources for this article include “OurRoots Are Still Alive” (Palestine), “TheCold War and Its Origins, 1917-1960”and “The End of the American Era”(Korea); “The Soviet Union and BlackAfrica” (Congo); “Dilemmas of ThirdWorld Communism” and “Indonesia:Second Greatest Crime of the Century”(Indonesia).

Next: The General Assembly, theSecurity Council and the anti-colonialmovements.

Page 10 Oct. 16, 2003 www.workers.org

100,000 asisten al históricoevento pro derechos de inmigrantes

The masses of workers have littleto gain through the process ofcapitalist elections, no matter

how “free” and “fair” they may appearto be. The latest spectacle in Californiadid nothing to put a dent in that rule.

Although it is obvious, it must bestated again and again: Money domi-nates bourgeois elections. ArnoldSchwarzenegger, who comes across asthe champion of the underdog in hisaction movies, has amassed a fortuneof half a billion dollars that lets himhobnob with the real ruling class. Hisability to afford millions of dollars oftelevision ads and his long history ofbeing a fund-raiser for the RepublicanParty instantly made the media treatthis screen celebrity as one of the veryfew “major” candidates for governor ina field of 135—even though he barelyput forward a political program.

He argued that his personal wealthinsulates him from “special interests.”It doesn’t work that way. For example,it’s an unspoken requirement of mem-bership in the U.S. Senate to be at leasta millionaire. And that’s who passes allthe reactionary laws giving tax breaksto the rich, giveaways to the oil, gasand timber interests, and fat contractsto the military-industrial-bankingcomplex, while putting leg-irons onworkers’ efforts to unionize.

Capitalist politics is really not thatdifferent from the world in whichSchwarzenegger has worked. In frontof the cameras, a carefully scripted fan-tasy is acted out. Its almost universalmessage is to rely on the superhero,whether he be a Terminator II or apresident or a governor, to rout thebad guys and protect the people, whoare presented as weak and unable toorganize in their own defense.

Gray Davis, the ousted Democraticgovernor, was no superhero. He wasflabby and weak when it came to fight-ing the rapacious energy companiesthat stole billions from the state duringthe manufactured electricity crisis oftwo years ago. The current state budgetcrisis, which led to this unprecedented

recall vote, can be traced directly tothat and the many other ways in whichthe corporate thieves milked the publictreasury to boost their profits in aperiod of market stagnation.

The energy crisis was a perfectopportunity to educate the people onthe predatory nature of monopoly cap-italism. But that’s not a role theDemocratic Party wanted to take on,since it too is 150-percent committedto this profit system. Nor did it want toarouse the people to the drastic situa-tion facing them and urge them tomobilize against the corporate raiders.

That left the field open for a politi-cally ambiguous and ambitious figurelike Schwarzenegger, with his strong-man image. He played to the wholehouse, Republicans and Democrats—taking a “liberal” stance on gay rightsand abortion but opposing rights forthe undocumented and having a his-tory of support for the “English first”forces.

The election did not represent somebroad sweep to the right among thevoters, as could be seen by the strongdefeat of Proposition 54—the so-called“racial privacy” initiative sponsored bythe right wing and intended to weakenaffirmative action.

Many organizations representingwomen, unions, environmentalists andother progressive forces put hard-earned money into the campaignagainst the recall and for theDemocratic Party. It’s down the drainnow. It would have been much betterspent fighting on the issues.

The whole country is now headinginto another electoral marathon. Morefantasy scripts will be acted out infront of the public. The movements forsocial progress will be under greatpressure to become a tail to the kite ofwhoever gets the Democratic Partynomination.

It’s a pressure that should beresisted. The place for the workers andall progressives is in the direct strug-gle, not in the shadow play that passesin this country for politics.

Out of the frying pan. . .

Ellos contribuyen unos $730 millonescada año a la economía de los EEUU.Estos obreros enfrentan constantehostigamiento, intimidación, discrimi-nación y súper-explotación.

Y todo esto se ha puesto peor desde queel régimen de Bush comenzó, especial-mente desde el 11 de septiembre de 2001.Sin quitar importancia a los ataques con-tra los inmigrantes de la administraciónClinton, los ataques a los inmigrantesdesde el 11 de septiembre han sido los másrepresivos en memoria reciente. Estos vandesde redadas en los lugares de trabajo yhogares, a la detención punitiva y registroforzado, hasta la deportación.

Así que es dentro de este contexto queel evento del 4 de octubre es más signi-ficativo. Este esfuerzo ha demostrado serla movilización más grande en el frentedoméstico desde que el régimen de Bushcomenzó.

Los obreros que tomaron parte en elmitin son de los más oprimidos en estepaís. Ellos son también de los obreros conmás conciencia de clase, por venir depaíses dominados por el imperialismoestadounidense.

Estos obreros han sido testigo de losefectos del imperialismo. Entienden queel colonialismo económico y militar vanmano a mano, como en el caso másreciente, Irak.

Miles de volantes impresos en difer-entes idiomas anunciando la protestanacional del 25 de octubre en Washington,D.C., contra la ocupación estadounidensede Irak fueron distribuidos el 4 de octubre.Aunque el mensaje político de la directivadel mitin era general, las masas mostraronque estaban abiertas a un mensaje másprogresista. Más importante aún,demostraron que ellos pueden y quierenmovilizar por sus derechos políticos yeconómicos como obreros.

Continua de página 12

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www.workers.org Oct. 16, 2003 Page 11

By Deirdre Griswold

How many prisoners is the Pentagonholding at Guantanamo? How and whywere they seized? What is their physicalcondition?

Why have over 30 attempted suicide?Have any died in custody?

Are they being charged with any crime?How long will they be held? What are theirnames, their ages? What countries andtowns do they come from?

What have they told their interroga-tors? What methods have been used tomake them talk?

None of this information is available tothe public. All of it is concealed as “classi-fied” by the Pentagon and U.S. govern-ment—which have invented a legal limbofor these prisoners, calling them “enemycombatants.”

The last estimate in the press of howmany are being held this way was 660people. Most were captured during theU.S. invasion and war againstAfghanistan—a very undeveloped coun-try that has been wracked with wars eversince 1979. That was when the Carteradministration decided to organizearmed opposition to the new progressiveregime there. Then, six months later, theSoviet Union intervened on the side ofthe secular government.

Washington later incurred the anger of

notes en route to Syria, a foreign nation.”If convicted in a court-martial, he couldget the death penalty.

His lawyers say he is innocent and thathis trip to Syria, his country of birth, wasto marry a woman there.

Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, also an inter-preter at the camp, was arrested on Sept.29. He was charged with giving false state-ments to federal authorities. He was takeninto custody at Logan InternationalAirport in Boston, where officials say theyfound him carrying classified material,including compact discs with informationabout Guantanamo.

The nature of this information is beingkept secret. Was it, perhaps, names of theprisoners so that their loved ones couldfinally know what had happened to them?

The third arrest was of Capt. James Y.Yee, a Muslim chaplain and Army WestPoint graduate. He has not been charged,but is under suspicion of having attemptedto bring “classified material” out of thebase. Yee was arrested at the naval air sta-tion in Jacksonville, Fla., on Sept. 10.

The commercial media are reporting allthis as though the only possible issue hereis espionage, a threat to U.S. “nationalsecurity,” the “war on terror.”

Not one has even mentioned the possi-bility that these translators may have beenmoved by the deplorable conditions oftheir Muslim brothers, may have been

its fundamentalist allies when it dumpedthem after the Soviet Union had pulled outits troops.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001, and the U.S.government eagerly used the attacks as ajustification to invade Afghanistan. It wasthe first test case of the aggressive BushDoctrine and an opportunity for thePentagon to test out and show off thepower of its new weaponry.

Many Afghans and others were cap-tured during this uneven war between apre-industrial country and the world’smightiest military power. Those flown toGuantanamo—a U.S. base imposed onCuba—have been held for almost twoyears in cages, on the other side of theworld and in a climate just the opposite ofwhat they are used to.

When seen in rare photos they are inchains and shackles, sometimes withhoods over their heads, being propped upby soldiers on either side.

Now the Pentagon has arrested three ofthe translators it used at Guantanamo. Allthree are Muslims and are U.S. citizens.

Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al-Halabi was arrested July 23. He is chargedwith attempted espionage and trying toaid the enemy. The Pentagon claims hetried to pass more than 180 notes fromGuantanamo detainees, as well as a mapof the prison and flight paths, to “a citizenof a foreign government by carrying such

Guantanamo translators arrested

Does Pentagon fear exposure?revolted by the chain-link curtain ofsilence meant to isolate them from theirfamilies and compatriots, and may havewanted to let at least their relatives, andperhaps the rest of the world, know whatis going on there.

True, this is only speculation. Maybenothing happened. Maybe these men havebeen totally set up in order to scare off anyattempts from whatever quarter to revealwhat is happening behind the barbed wireof Camp Delta.

But if they were carrying messagesfrom the prisoners, or lists of their names,it is likely that these U.S. career officerscouldn’t stand being a part of this viciousrepression any more and acted out of sym-pathy and compassion for their fellowhuman beings.

Since everything about the prison atGuantanamo has been kept secret and“classified,” even information about whothe prisoners are and what has happenedto them is also “classified.” If there arecourt-martials, will the military presentfor open scrutiny the presumed evidenceagainst the translators—or will that, too,be a military secret?

At the end of August, lawyers from 10countries sent an open letter to the UnitedStates calling for civilian trials for thetranslators. There is no way they canreceive a fair trial in a military court underthese circumstances.

¿Es una solución de ‘dos estados’ parte del pasado?más de $3 mil millones de dólares al añoen ayuda militar y económica y miles demillones más por otras vías.

Creando ‘hechos reales’

Sharon, Ehud Barak, quien fuera elprimer ministro israelita en el año 2000,y sus predecesores se han dedicado aprevenir el establecimiento de cualquiertipo de estado Palestino real.

Desde la toma ilegal de la FranjaOccidental y Gaza en la guerra expan-sionista de Israel del 1967, los gobiernossucesivos-liderados ya por el partidoderechista Likud o por el erróneamentenombrado Partido Laboral-han traba-jado para crear “hechos reales”. Estos“hechos” creados incluyen la construc-ción de colonias estratégicamente situ-adas, carreteras periféricas, bases mil-itares y ahora una pared de apartheid,todo para evitar la posibilidad de queemerja un estado palestino viable.

Pero el resultado de este procesopuede terminar siendo muy diferente alo que sus ejecutores tenían en mente.

El Presidente Yasir Arafat y su partidoFatah favorecen una solución de dosestados. Otros en el movimientopalestino piden un estado democrático,secular-y en algunos casos socialista-entoda Palestina, con derechos igualespara todo el pueblo.

Para aquellos que apoyan la soluciónde dos estados, el requerimiento mínimoes un estado real con territorio contiguo,y con el derecho a controlar sus fron-teras. Ninguno de estos requerimientosfundamentales ha sido aceptado porOslo o por el “Mapa del Camino.”

Los Estados Unidos e Israel exigieronque el liderazgo de la AutoridadNacional Palestina no solo acepte lo ina-ceptable, sino que también deben lanzar

una guerra civil contra las organiza-ciones en resistencia: como Hamas, laJihad islámica, el Frente Popular para laLiberación de Palestina y la Brigada deMártires Al-Aqsa-esta última organizadapor Fatah.

La guerra civil que Washington y TelAviv están demandando sería tambiénuna guerra de clases, una guerra contralos urbanos pobres, los habitantes de lasaldeas y sobre todo contra los residentesde los campos de refugiados quienes sonlos cimientos de la Intifada.

A pesar de su gran superioridad enarmas, los líderes de los EE.UU. e Israelno han podido destruir la luchapalestina. Por eso ahora, como una con-dición para más negociaciones, estoslíderes demandan que los palestinos sedestruyan a sí mismos.

Cuando Arafat rehusó hacer esto,Washington lo denunció y buscó la man-era de aislarlo, mientras buscaba uncolaborador títere -un líder burgués queles serviría. Hasta ahora, esto tampocolo han logrado.

Grietas en establecimientoisraelí

Si la solución de dos estados es impe-dida, ¿qué opciones quedan?

Esta situación se agudiza más por elhecho de que por primera vez desde 1948,la población israelí y la poblaciónpalestina entre el Río Jordán y el MarMediterráneo son aproximadamenteiguales. Si esta tendencia sigue, para elaño 2015, los palestinos serán una may-oría indisputable.

Para poder mantener su carácter sion-ista exclusivo con derechos y privilegiosespeciales para israelíes judíos, Israel ten-drá que iniciar una nueva Nakba ó expul-sión de palestinos mayor que la del 1948,o asumir en términos concretos un carác-

ter parecido al sistema de apartheid.La otra alternativa es un solo estado con

igualdad de derechos para todos.A pesar de la vasta disparidad en poder

y riqueza entre Israel y los palestinos, estanueva realidad está produciendo grietasen el establecimiento israelí. Un sen-timiento de duda está emergiendo. Estose ha reflejado recientemente por sor-prendentes declaraciones expresadas porvarios líderes intelectuales israelíes.

En julio Meron Benvenisti, el ex vice-alcalde de Jerusalén dijo, “La conclusiónes que la solución aparentementeracional de dos estados para dosnaciones no puede funcionar acá. Elmodelo de una división en dos estados esinaplicable. No refleja la profundidaddel conflicto y no corresponde a la mag-nitud del enredo que existe en gran partedel país.

“Se podrán construir aquí todas lasmurallas del mundo pero no se podrásuperar el hecho que hay sólo un acuíferoy un mismo aire y que todos los ríos fluyenal mismo mar. No se podrá superar elhecho de que este país no va a tolerar unafrontera en su propio medio.”

“El año pasado, entonces, llegué a laconclusión de que no hay otra alternativaque la de pensar en términos nuevos. Nohay más opción que la de pensar en eloeste de Palestina como una sola entidadgeopolítica.

“Así como los gobernantes de Sudáfricaentendieron que no tuvieron más alterna-tiva que desmantelar el régimen, elestablecimiento israelí tiene que entenderque no es capaz de imponer su conceptohegemónico sobre 3,5 millones de palesti-nos en la Franja Occidental y en Gaza y los1,2 millones de palestinos que son ciu-dadanos de Israel. Lo que tenemos quehacer es tratar de lograr una situación deigualdad colectiva y personal.”

El 29 de agosto, Abraham Burg, ex líderdel Knesset (parlamento) israelí, escribióen el periódico el New York Forward: “Elfin del proyecto sionista ya está connosotros. ... La enfermedad que consumelas entrañas del sionismo ya ha atacado lacabeza. ... La conclusión ineludible es quela revolución sionista ha muerto.”

Pilotos rehúsan órdenes de asesinar

Otra sorpresa para los círculos domi-nantes israelíes y la opinión pública vinoen forma de una carta a finales de sep-tiembre firmada por 27 pilotos militaresactivos y retirados.

La carta, enviada al comandante de laFuerza Aérea de Israel, declaró que lospilotos rehusarían participar en másasesinatos aéreos, igual que en otrasoperaciones contra áreas pobladas porciviles en la Franja Occidental y en Gaza.Líderes israelíes denunciaron a los pilo-tos que son muy respetados por granparte de la sociedad israelí, como “sub-versivos”.

B’Tselem, el Centro de InformaciónIsraelí sobre Derechos Humanos en losTerritorios Ocupados, reportó el 28 deseptiembre que la Fuerza Aérea de Israelhabía matado por lo menos a 131 palesti-nos, incluyendo a 65 espectadoresdurante los últimos tres años.Asesinatos perpetrados por las fuerzasterrestres han ocasionado la muerte depor lo menos 76 activistas palestinos.

Dado el hecho que, según las encues-tas, una mayoría de israelíes apoya unnivel mayor de represión, sería equivo-cado pensar que estos puntos de vistason generalizados. Pero sería una equiv-ocación aún mayor ignorar la importan-cia potencial de la aparición de talespuntos de vista en la política dominantede Israel.

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Fatah-Movimiento de Liberación Nac-ional Palestina, dijo a los jueces y almundo: “Estoy orgulloso de la Intifada.Estoy orgulloso de la resistencia a la ocu-pación israelita. Morir es mejor que vivirbajo la ocupación. Yo estoy aquí porqueme resistí a la ocupación.”

Hablando en hebreo, Barghouti dijo: Yoespero que los israelitas hayan aprendidoque el pueblo palestino no puede doble-garse por la fuerza. Si una ocupación notermina unilateralmente o por medio denegociaciones entonces sólo hay una solu-ción, un estado para dos pueblos.

“¿Cómo puede ser que los judíosquienes sufrieron y sobrevivieron el holo-causto se permitan utilizar medios taninsufribles e inaceptables contra otropueblo?”

La segunda Intifada comenzó el 28 deseptiembre del 2000, cuando ArielSharon, entonces un ministro de laCámara y ahora el primer ministro deIsrael, protegido por 1.500 oficiales de lapolicía, invadió al Haram Al-Sharif. Ese esel sitio de la Cúpula de la Roca y el tercerlugar más santo del islam.

Los palestinos se rebelaron contra laprovocación de Sharon y contra el “plan depaz” que los gobiernos de Estados Unidose Israel intentaban forzarles a aceptar.

Desde entonces, 2.625 palestinos, un71% de estos bajo la edad de 29 años, hanperdido sus vidas, según el periódicoMonitor Palestino. Durante el mismotiempo, 749 israelitas han muerto. Más de36.000 palestinos han sido heridos ydecenas de miles más han perdido sus

Por Richard Becker

Cientos de miles de palestinos en laFranja Occidental, Gaza, el Líbano y den-tro de las fronteras del 1948 de Israeltomaron las calles el 28 de septiembrepara conmemorar el tercer aniversario dela Intifada Al-Aksa.

Alrededor del mundo, se celebraronmarchas en solidaridad en más de 40países.

La masiva manifestación del 28 de sep-tiembre, frente a la represión israelita,reafirmó que sin una justicia real para elpueblo palestino, no puede haber paz enel Medio Oriente.

En su declaración del 30 de septiembreante la corte israelita la cual lo juzga ile-galmente, Marwan Barghouti, un líder de

hogares, destruidos deliberadamente porel ejército israelí.

Más de 7.200 prisioneros políticospalestinos están presos ilegalmente encárceles israelitas. Ni un sólo israelita hasido encarcelado por la AutoridadPalestina.

La tasa de desempleo palestina es másdel 50%. Y a pesar de que la economíaisraelita está en depresión y la tasa oficialde desempleo ha alcanzado el 11%, elingreso por cápita es 15 veces más que elde los palestinos viviendo en la FranjaOccidental y Gaza.

Israel, el cual juega un papel importanteen la campaña de Washington de dominaral Medio Oriente, recibe una enorme asis-tencia monetaria de los Estados Unidos-

La resistencia Palestina a la ocupación israelita:

¿Es una solución de ‘dos estados’parte del pasado?

Estas Invitado(a) a Participar en unaCCONFERONFERENCIAENCIA NNAACICIONONAALL ESPESPECIAECIALL

¿Como se Puede Revivir la Lucha

Socialista Mundial?Oradores Destacados •Paneles de Discusión•Talleres

SABADO Y DOMINGODICIEMBRE 6-7Nueva York (el lugar será anunciado)

Patrocinado porEL PARTIDO MUNDO OBRERO

Para más información,Llame 212-627-2994 o visite www.workers.org

100,000 asisten al histórico evento pro derechos de inmigrantes

Por Anya Mujarki-ConnollyQueens, N.Y.

El 4 de octubre la histórica Caravana dela Libertad de los TrabajadoresInmigrantes que traía 1,000 obreros inmi-grantes de sitios alrededor del país, cul-minó en un enorme mitin en el ParqueFlushing Meadows de Queens, NuevaYork. Queens es el condado más diversode los Estados Unidos.

Organizadores del evento anunciaronque más de 100,000 personas asistieron.Muchos de ellos sacrificaron mucho paraestar aquí.

Estos obreros vinieron de todas partesdel país con sus uniones, sus organiza-ciones de ciudadanos de la tercera edad,sus organizaciones comunales y sus famil-ias. Éste fue el primer esfuerzo recienteexitoso que reunió a sindicalistas,asiátic@s, african@s, latinoamerican@s,comunidades inmigrantes caribeñas asícomo a la comunidad negra, uniéndolescontra las racistas, derechistas y divisivasleyes anti-inmigrante.

Usando la histórica Gira de la Libertaddel movimiento de los derechos civiles delos años sesenta como inspiración, losorganizadores comenzaron el 20 de sep-tiembre. Las 9 caravanas de autobusesviajaron a 100 ciudades en 42 estados.

Por el camino, los obreros inmigrantesy sus partidarios exponían las demandasde este movimiento: legalización y uncamino a la ciudadanía estadounidensepara todos los obreros inmigrantes, elderecho a la reunificación de las familias,protección de los derechos laborales en eltrabajo sin tener en cuenta el estado legal,y protección de los derechos y libertadesciviles de todos.

La movilización se originó con loslíderes de la unión de Empleados deHoteles y Restaurantes (HERE) que hicie-ron que el AFL-CIO la apoyara. HERE—junto con otras uniones que cuentan con

muchos obreros inmigrantes comoUNITE, la Unión de Trabajadores de laIndustria de Alimentos, y la Unión deEmpleados de Servicio, sobre todo suLocal 1199-eran las fuerzas tras laCaravana de la Libertad.

Pero muchas luchas recientes hicieronque el movimiento obrero organizara esteevento. Las luchas de los obreros de taxien Nueva York, los esfuerzos de laCampaña Justicia para Conserjes y otrasluchas militantes han sido dirigidas porobreros inmigrantes.

Los oradores en el mitin incluyeron alPresidente de la AFL-CIO John Sweeney,al Presidente de HERE Local 100 BillGranfield, al Presidente de 1199-SEIUDennis Rivera, al Representante porHarlem Charles Rangel, al Representantepor Georgia. John Lewis, a la Vicepre-sidenta de UNITE May Chen, alPresidente de los Obreros del TransporteLocal 100 Roger Toussaint, al Presidentede HERE John Wilhem, a María ElenaDurazo, Vicepresidente de HERE; alPresidente de los Obreros de la Agri-cultura Arturo Rodríguez y al Presidentede UNITE Bruce Raynor.

La mayoría de los oradores culpó a laadministración de Bush de las condicionesenfrentadas hoy por los obreros inmi-grantes. Algunos oradores hablaron sobreel “Sueño Americano” y dijeron que eléxito de los obreros que vienen a este paísse mide por medio del “trabajo duro.”

En la realidad, el imperialismo mundialestá destruyendo las economías y elimi-nado los trabajos en los países oprimidos.Esto crea las condiciones que obligan amillones de obreros a emigrar a este país.

Aquí, estos obreros son súper-explota-dos por la misma clase capitalista que seaprovecha de su trabajo y de los recursosen su patria.

Hay estimadamente de 8 a 10 millonesde obreros indocumentados en este país.

WW FOTO: PAT CHIN

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