Body bags stockpiled for Genoa summit

June 21— Italian authorities have ordered 200 body bags as they step up preparations for a violent confrontation at next month’s G8 summit in Genoa, say Italian media reports. A room at the city’s hospital will also be set aside as a temporary mortuary, said Italian news agency ANSA.

The reports come amid growing concern that the G8 summit will witness even worse confrontations than last weekend’s European meeting in Gothenburg. Tens of thousands of protesters -- from anarchists to Basque separatists -- are expected to head for Genoa.

As well as the threat of civil disobedience, Italian authorities claim that attempts may be made on the lives of some of the world leaders present. One threat passed on to Italy by the German secret service is of an assassination plan by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, aimed at US President George W Bush. Militant supporters of Bin Laden are said to be planning a possible bomb attack.

President Putin’s personal security will also be stepped up because of a possible threat of violence from Chechen rebels, say his bodyguards.

Mr. Putin’s bodyguards have already visited Genoa and met the heads of special services from nearly all the countries being represented there, said Russian security chief Yevgeny Murov.

“Each special service works out its own method of providing security these days. Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service renders enormous assistance to us, and we are in a permanent contact with them,” he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

He said his agency was aware of the Bin Laden threat, and was making its Genoa preparations in light of it.

“We view the threats as totally serious, but hope that with joint efforts we can solve all the problems,” said Murov.

Leaders from Italy, France, Canada, the UK, Japan and Germany will also be at the two-day summit, which starts on July 20.

Italian authorities are preparing a huge force of 20,000 police and soldiers, backed by the threat of tear gas, water cannon and a formidable array of military hardware.

A “ring of steel” will be imposed on the city. Railway stations and motorway junctions will be closed, and flights into Genoa diverted.

In the city itself, the streets around the summit venue have been declared a “red zone”, and will be blocked off by dozens of armored vehicles. Outside the red zone, some areas will be set aside for protesters to make their views known.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he wants to have a dialogue with the protesters, and stresses the legitimate right of people to make their views known, but he has warned them that violent extremists will be “isolated and not be allowed to do harm.”

Aircraft carriers

As the security operation continues to build up, some organizers are still reported to be keen to switch the summit venue to a cruise ship, which would be moored safely out at sea somewhere along the Italian Riviera.

At least two conference leaders -- President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac -- are already planning waterborne accommodation. Both will stay on aircraft carriers while attending the summit.

Concern about security has deepened since events in Gothenburg, when Swedish police used attack dogs and horses to break up crowds and were met with stiff resistance from protesters.

A lavish dinner had to be canceled and some delegations had to switch hotels after police said they could no longer guarantee their safety.

Three protesters were shot and dozens of police officers were hurt.

Source: BBC

Activists press governments to share draft FTAA plan

By Gumisai Mutume

Washington, DC, June 21 (IPS)— More than two months after 34 governments negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) pledged to publish their draft agreement, citizens’ groups are still trying to pry the document from officials’ hands.

“They promised to release the document more than 70 days ago,” said Carrie Biggs-Adams of the 740,000-strong labor union, Communication Workers of America (CWA). “The reason why they will not release it is because they know we are right when we say the FTAA will negatively affect the lives of millions of poor people in the region.”

Negotiations over the FTAA — which will encompass more than 750 million people and constitute the world’s biggest free trade area when established in 2005 — have until now only been privy to government officials and their corporate advisers.

“There needs to be public debate on the agreement, but by seeking fast-track (trade promotion authority) the Bush administration seeks to stifle debate,” said Biggs-Adams, referring to President George W. Bush’s push for the power to negotiate trade pacts without fear of Congressional amendment.

A number of groups including the CWA this week intensified calls for the official release of the draft text of the 250-page FTAA agreement. A draft of the document’s chapter on investment was leaked in April, during the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Canada, but the rest of the document remains secret.

Bill Frenzel of the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, sees no need to rush the release of the proposed agreement.

“Until governments are ready to seek ratification, it would be unusual to have drafts of an agreement floating around,” says Frenzel. “It is in the nature of activists to throw everything out onto the streets and they say just about the same things about every other trade agreement.”

A US trade official blamed the delay in releasing the document on the process of translating it from English into French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Unimpressed by such explanations, the US-based Alliance for Responsible Trade, a network of labor, environmental, and political groups and think-tanks, is asking sympathizers to write urging members of Congress to vote against fast track.

Ministers from prospective FTAA member states promised in April that, “in keeping with our commitment to transparency, we have agreed to publicize the draft FTAA Agreement in the four official languages, after the Third Summit of the Americas.”

The April 20-22 Quebec summit ended with similar declarations of intent by the leaders from all the countries of the western hemisphere except Cuba, which is excluded from the FTAA.

“If our governments are truly committed to transparency, they must release the text and also commit to releasing future drafts,” says Hector de la Cueva, general secretary of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), an umbrella organization claiming a combined membership of some 45 million people.

The HSA also released this week an analysis of the leaked investment chapter. “The people of the Americas have the right to know what type of deal our negotiators are attempting to impose on the hemisphere,” said de la Cueva.

According to the analysis, the FTAA investment chapter extends rights to corporations much like those enshrined in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the United States. It would allow investors to sue governments for breach of any of a list of obligations. This, opponents charge, will restrict the ability of states to protect the environment and public welfare.

Concerns over similar provisions helped galvanize opposition to the abortive Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

“The investor-state provisions were first proposed in order to avoid nationalization of foreign companies by governments,” said David Waskow, international policy analyst at the non-governmental group Friends of the Earth US. “They go way beyond most national laws and are rather out-dated.”

Also like NAFTA, the draft FTAA investment chapter proposes that governments treat foreign investors as favorably as domestic ones although it would grant member states one opportunity to list exemptions to this rule.

“The prospects for obtaining effective exceptions are limited by the lack of consultation in most countries between negotiators and the general public, as well as parliamentarians and sub-national governments,” the HSA said in its critique of the chapter.

However, the entire text of the leaked chapter is enclosed in brackets, indicating a lack of official consensus.

Canadians seek probe of police actions at trade summit

By Mark Bourrie

Ottawa, Canada, June 22 (IPS)— Grassroots groups lodged a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission Friday, alleging abuses by police during the Summit of the Americas two months ago in Quebec City.

Police actions at the summit, which drew 34 heads of government from the western hemisphere, have soured Canada’s reputation as a tolerant nation, the groups charged. Police arrested 463 activists and housed them in a jail that had been emptied out in anticipation of the summit, held to forge plans for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Officials said the complaint will be investigated by the Human Rights Commission and may result in a public inquiry. It comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by a Canadian Member of Parliament against police who shot him with a plastic bullet. Svend Robinson, a socialist from the New Democratic Party (NDP), also filed suit against a right-wing newspaper that mocked him for complaining about police conduct.

Law enforcement officials could not be reached for comment. Activists arrested during the summit are expected to stand trial in the autumn.

During the summit, more than 10,000 local and federal police were deployed behind a three-meter chain-link fence that surrounded Quebec’s business district. Protesters outside the perimeter were tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets by groups of police who roamed the city’s side streets.

Female activists who were jailed said they were strip-searched and deloused by male guards. Others said they were arrested by plainclothes police who drove around the city in unmarked vans looking for leaders of anti-FTAA groups.

A counter summit of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and opponents of the FTAA in Montreal, 200 kilometers away, proceeded without incident.

The fallout from the April summit has continued, with many Latin American activists telling the Council of Canadians, an anti-FTAA NGO, that they were shocked by the level of police violence in Quebec.

“Anti-FTAA groups and individuals in Mexico, Brazil and Chile condemned the highhandedness of the police,” said David Robbins, trade campaigner at the Council. “The previous summit, in Chile, did not have the kind of intimidation and violence that the Quebec Summit had.”

“It was a shock to Canada’s self-image and its reputation abroad to have that amount of violence,” he added.

Still, only one of Canada’s four opposition political parties complained in Parliament about the police action. The NDP, the only party to come out in opposition of the FTAA, demanded a public inquiry into police actions and a suspension of the FTAA talks. NDP leader Alexa McDunnough said the government “no longer has an independent trade policy. This government has become a total creature of the US.”

Bill Clennett, a leader of the Ottawa Committee Against the FTAA, told the Canadian Human Rights Commission his group wants a public inquiry into police actions at the Quebec summit, a ban on the use of plastic and rubber bullets, and the dropping of criminal charges laid against 22 anti-FTAA activists.

Berenson sentenced to 20 years for ‘collaboration’ with rebels

By Abraham Lama

Lima, Peru, June 21 (IPS)— United States citizen Lori Berenson was found guilty and sentenced late Wednesday by a civilian court in Peru to 20 years in prison for the crime of voluntarily collaborating with the insurgent Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) in plans to take over the Peruvian Congress.

She was absolved of the charges implicating her as a militant member of the guerrilla organization, but the ruling indicated she was more than a “mere spectator.’’

Her attorney, José Sandoval, had announced earlier that they would appeal any sentence handed down by the three-judge panel after an hours- long reading by a court clerk of “the facts of the case.’’

Statements by Peru’s justice minister, Diego Garcia Sayan, indicated that the interim government of Valentín Paniagua would uphold the court’s decision, which means a presidential pardon is highly unlikely. Alejandro Toledo takes office as Peru’s new president next month.

Five years ago, a military court sentenced her to life imprisonment after a masked judge in an anti-terrorist trial found her guilty of being an MRTA leader and of planning a terrorist attack against Congress.

That sentence was annulled in August 2000 and a retrial ordered as a result of rising pressure from the international community claiming that Berenson had not received a fair trial under the military court.

Last March, four months after former president Alberto Fujimori was removed from office, civilian justice began the new trial.

The cancellation of the first sentence was the result of “new evidence that revealed she did not hold a leadership position and, as such, said sentence (life imprisonment) was not correct.’’

Berenson, a 31-year-old from New York, was arrested in November 1995 following a police raid on the house she was renting in the residential neighborhood of La Molina in the capital. Fifteen MRTA guerrillas were staying there at the time, and resisted with gunfire.

For more information: www.freelori.org

Chavez criticizes FTAA as a ‘quick fix’

Valencia, Venezuela, June 23— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened a summit of Andean nations Saturday by criticizing the proposed 2005 Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) as a quick fix for the impoverished region.

A proposal by President Bush and other Western Hemisphere leaders for a free trade pact that would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to include Central and South America has won support from some Andean heads of state.

But Chavez warned that unless poor South American nations unite before joining the FTAA, they risk opening the door to multinational giants that will wipe out struggling local businesses and eliminate jobs.

“I think we need to revise the integration process. Is neoliberalism the way to integrate? In Venezuela, we don’t think so,” Chavez said at the opening of the weekend summit in Valencia, Venezuela.

The leftist Chavez is convinced that the Andean Community of Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador can gain negotiating muscle by putting their own regional economic integration ahead of the FTAA.

But other leaders, including Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, said Saturday free trade from Canada to Chile could help spur economic growth in the region and create jobs.

The Andean leaders agreed, however, that something must be done to eliminate the poverty that affects more than half the region’s 113 million inhabitants. About 23 million people live in “extreme poverty,” defined by the World Bank as living on less than a dollar a day.

“The Andean Community is much more than import tariffs and trade. It is the anguish, dreams and hopes” of its people, Pastrana said.

The Andean leaders also were discussing the establishment of common tariffs, ways to fight illegal drugs, border security, political unrest and rebel insurgencies.

The summit will close with a military parade honoring Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan general who became a hero of Colombia.

Chavez trumpets Third World unity to confront a “unipolar” world dominated by the United States.

Source: Associated Press

Anti-death penalty conference lashes out at US

Brussels, Belgium, June 22— The head of the Council of Europe on Thursday derided America’s use of the death penalty as an ineffectual tool against crime and a morally wrong choice which has put innocent people on death row.

The inaugural World Congress against the Death Penalty, which opened on Thursday in Strasbourg, France, also included a frontal attack of European Union external relations commissioner Chris Patten on China’s “Hard Strike” policy, which he called “so horrifying as to be almost unbelievable.”

During a highly-charged opening session, Council of Europe secretary-general Walter Schwimmer cast aside his prepared notes and immediately attacked US policy.

“Do you know how many people in the United States are on death row?” Schwimmer asked. “No less than 3,700. Would anyone really believe that the death penalty is a tool to fight crime? If that would be true, the United States would be a country without crime and without violence.”

The three-day conference opened in the wake of the executions in the United States of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted murderer and drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza.

Capital punishment became a key sticking point during the visit of President George W Bush to Europe last week. Critics questioned the effectiveness and the morality of capital punishment.

China was not spared when it came to criticizing government policies on the death penalty.

The anti-crime campaign Strike Hard has already sent hundreds -- ranging from murderers and drug dealers to embezzlers -- to be executed after being paraded at public rallies. Foreign critics fear Chinese courts are rushing to judgment, condemning people on possibly shaky evidence or even forced confessions.

“The figures emanating from China about its use of the death penalty under the “Strike Hard” policy are so horrifying as to be almost unbelievable,” said Patten in a statement prepared for address. Patten was the British administrator in Hong Kong before the territory was handed over to China.

He also warned that in Iran the practice of executing women by stoning had resumed after a four-year lull.

He said he had raised the issue with Iranian officials recently.

The 43-member Council of Europe is the continent’s biggest human rights organization and has obtained a total ban or moratorium on executions in its member states. “Europe has become a de facto death penalty free zone,” Schwimmer said.

Abolishing the death penalty is a requirement for membership in the 15-member EU.

The symposium, held under the auspices of the Council of Europe, was held under a huge banner “Together against the death penalty.”

Patten said the EU was funding a project in the Philippines to increase DNA testing in death penalty cases. “There are more than 1,000 death row convicts, most of whom lack the means to hire legal assistance.

“Challenging these death row convictions with DNA testing could greatly affect the current pro death penalty opinion,” he said.

“Together we have to fight for the total abolition of the death penalty,” said Schwimmer. “Death can never be justice.”

Source: Associated Press

New Guinea IMF protests shut down capital

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, June 24— Port Moresby ground to a halt yesterday as thousands of chanting students defied police bans and marched on several key areas to protest against moves to privatize the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Banking Corporation and enforce compulsory land registration.

The bank privatization and land mobilization are key reforms sought by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Yesterday’s protest brought to a head days of nationwide disruptions to businesses as bank staff went on strike over pay entitlements while students demanded that IMF and World Bank officials quit PNG.

Thousands of University of PNG students were joined yesterday by others as public transport ground to halt. Some buses were forced to carry protesters to various assembly points. The action targeted the capital’s central business district. Other noisier protests were staged around the Australian High Commission, US Embassy, the National Parliament and the Prime Minister’s offices.

One witness said police fired warning shots in Waigani as thousands of early morning commuters were stopped from traveling to work on public buses. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

The protests were the biggest and most widespread in Port Moresby since a revolt by the army in March over now-abandoned plans to reduce their numbers.

Local reporters covering yesterday’s protests said some of the protesters looted small stall holders in the Waigani area. A radio talk show was flooded with callers supporting the students with one claiming: “Today is just the beginning. There is more to come.” Another caller said the World Bank and IMF were using PNG as “a guinea pig to pay for their causes.”

Others called for a halt to privatization plans until after next year’s national elections. The Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta refused to bow last night to student demands that he meet their leaders to accept a petition. Hundreds chanted outside his offices as heavily-armed police threw up protective cordons.

Source: Port Moresby Post-Courier

UN approves resolution on Vieques

United Nations, June 22— A UN committee adopted a Cuban-backed resolution Thursday calling on the United States to expedite independence for Puerto Rico and order an immediate end to US military exercises on the tiny island of Vieques.

The resolution, which is not legally binding, was approved without a vote by the 24-member special committee on decolonization issues. Chile expressed reservations about its scope and Papua New Guinea questioned whether the committee had authority to deal with the question of Puerto Rico.

Cuba’s UN Ambassador Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said the world could not wait for another bomb in Vieques, the site of the US Navy’s prized Atlantic Fleet training ground.

Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth with limited local government. The 4 million residents of the Spanish-speaking island are US citizens who serve in the armed forces, but they do not pay federal taxes, cannot vote for president, and have no vote in Congress.

The resolution adopted Thursday calls on the US government “to assume its responsibility of expediting a process that will allow the Puerto Rican people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.”

The resolution urges the US government “to order the immediate halt of its armed forces’ military drills and maneuvers on Vieques Island.”

It calls for the United States to “return the occupied land to the people of Puerto Rico, halt the persecution, incarcerations, arrests and harassment of peaceful demonstrators, immediately release all persons incarcerated in this connection ... and decontaminate the impact areas” in the Vieques bombing range.

Chiapas mayors protest modified indigenous rights bill

By Alejandro Ruiz

San Cristobal De Las Casas, Mexico, June 23— Seventeen mayors and thousands of residents from Mexico’s southernmost state gathered to protest changes to an Indian rights bill aimed at restoring peace to the troubled region.

The revised bill “doesn’t take into account the feelings and the opinions of the societies that make up this region,” Mariano Diaz, mayor of the highlands city of San Cristobal, said Friday.

The rights initiative was first drafted in 1996 during peace talks between a government peace commission and the Zapatista rebels, who led a short-lived rebellion in the name of Indian rights two years earlier. Then-President Ernesto Zedillo rejected the measure.

President Vicente Fox sent the bill to Congress as his first official act after ending 71 years of single party rule when he took office Dec. 1. After months of legislative debate, a heavily amended version passed Congress in April.

Zapatista military leader Subcomandante Marcos immediately rejected the bill, which he said was watered-down and insulting to Mexico’s 10 million Indians.

The Zapatistas want regional autonomy for Indian areas on issues such as native languages, as well as traditional government and law based on councils of elders or village assemblies rather than federal standards.

Congress’ version of the bill would weaken that autonomy and subject laws based on Indian customs to approval by state legislatures.

The initiative must be approved by 16 of Mexico’s 31 state legislatures. Thus far, it has been approved by 11 of the 13 state legislatures that have put it to a vote. The measure must also be approved by two-thirds of Congress.

Chiapas’ legislature delayed a vote, calling a number of popular referendums to allow local voters to voice their own opinions.

On Friday, mayors from Mexico’s three-largest political parties as well as several smaller parties staged their protest to coincide with the first Chiapas-wide popular referendum.

Source: Associated Press

National strike in Dominican Republic

June 20— A 48-hour national civic strike in the Dominican Republic began on June 19 in relative calm, following weeks of local demonstrations in which people were killed, injured and arrested protesting electricity blackouts and police violence. The strike was not without incident; some 12 people were wounded by rubber bullets or live ammunition and around 100 people were arrested, including many grassroots leaders who were detained on the night of June 18, before the strike began.

On June 19, the strike committee — made up of the Broad Front of Popular Struggle (FALPO), the Collective of Grassroots Organizations, and other groups — called a halt to the action, reportedly in response to requests from small business owners. That same evening, President Hipolito Mejia ordered the release of those arrested. Twenty-six grassroots leaders were freed early on June 20. Organizers said the strike was successful, citing Mejia’s cancellation of a 20% electricity rate increase which had been scheduled to take effect on July 1.

Despite the lifting of the strike, protests took place on June 20 in several areas. In Nagua, police hurled tear gas at demonstrators; dozens of children were treated at the local hospital for tear gas inhalation.

On June 20, the US corporation Smith Enron shut down its electricity generating plants in the north of the Dominican Republic, allegedly to protest the government’s failure to pay debts to the company. A spokesperson for the partially state-run Dominican Electricity Corporation (CDE) called Smith Enron’s actions “blackmail,” noting that the US company charges for “installed capacity,” but has never provided the amount of electricity it charges for. The failure of private electricity companies to provide adequate services was a major motivation for the June 19 strike and for earlier protests.

Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas wnu@igc.org