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Ecuador’s Gutiérrez promises to ‘govern for the poor’

Right-wing campaign of sabotage escalates in Venezuela

The ‘Buy American’ aid package

Palestinian culture under deadly seige

UN: more countries fighting violence against women

Ecuador’s Gutiérrez promises to ‘govern for the poor’

By Kintto Lucas

Quito, Ecuador, Nov. 25 (IPS)— The triumph of leftist former colonel Lucio Gutiérrez in Sunday’s runoff election in Ecuador has brought this Andean country’s indigenous movement, the best-organized in the Americas, to power.

Lucio Gutiérrez,
Ecuador’s president-elect.

Gutiérrez, who garnered 54.4 percent of the vote, against the 45.6 percent of his rival, banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa, said he would create a government of national unity, which would “put emphasis on the social debt” in this Andean nation where nearly 80 percent of the population is living in poverty.

The president-elect was backed by an alliance between his 21 January Patriotic Society party and the Pachakutik Movement for Multinational Unity — the political arm of the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).

“Millions of Ecuadorians have deposited their trust and confidence in me, and I am not going to let them down. I have to be the best president. I won in the first and second round, and now I must win the third round, which is the most difficult: governing,” Gutiérrez said.

Some 3.5 million of Ecuador’s 12 million people are Indians belonging to 11 ethnic groups: the Quechua, Awa, Chachi, Epera, Tsáchila, Cofán, Siona, Secoya, Huaorani, Achuar, and Shuar.

The rest of the population is mainly of mixed-race Indian, European, and black heritage.

On Jan. 21, 2000, disgruntled junior military officers led by Gutiérrez threw their support behind an indigenous uprising and toppled then-president Jamil Mahuad, who was replaced by then vice-president Gustavo Noboa (no relation to Alvaro).

Gutiérrez’s triumph was applauded by the president of CONAIE, Leonidas Iza, as “a historic day, a day of hope.

“We have been excluded for so long. At this moment we have created a hope for change — not only for indigenous people, but for all of the dispossessed, abandoned sectors who have been cheated for so long,” said Iza, the head of the movement that will form the main support base of the future government.

Iza said Ecuador’s Indians want “profound changes in this country, because so far its leaders have only governed for a handful of Ecuadorians, not for everyone.”

Political analysts interpret Gutiérrez’s triumph as part of a current of change sweeping through South America. They draw a parallel between his arrival to power and that of populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, also a former military officer who, in 1992, led a failed coup d’etat .

Observers also point to similarities with the recent election of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In the campaign, Gutiérrez’s alliance with the indigenous movement and his promise to redistribute wealth led his rivals to raise the specter of a “communist government,” and gave rise to jitters among multilateral credit institutions and foreign investors.

Gutiérrez said he would push for the creation of a regional bloc that goes beyond the Andean Community trade bloc (made up of Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela). He did not rule out the possibility of meeting over the next few months with Lula — who takes office on Jan. 1 — and other presidents interested in working towards that objective.

“We want a historic opportunity that we must build together. But we must also strengthen our trade relations with the United States, the European Union, and the countries of Asia, since that is the only way we’ll be able to pull ahead,” he added.

With respect to the future Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which is opposed by Ecuador’s leftist and indigenous movements, he argued that for his country to enter the continent-wide free trade agreement under the conditions that are currently projected would amount to suicide.

“We must talk and see if it is possible to transform that threat into an opportunity,” said Gutiérrez, who will have to work with a Congress in which his group of legislators will be just one of several minority forces.

“Some governments have dedicated themselves solely to governing in benefit of the economic and political elites. It is time to sit down at a table with the dispossessed and the poor of our nations as well,” he stressed.

The president-elect said that his idea was to invite representatives of a broad range of social sectors, including farmers, manufacturers, business leaders, and “honest bankers,” in a government that will maintain equilibrium between sound macroeconomic fundamentals and the fight against poverty.

“We will work hard to keep our accounts balanced, fight the budget deficit, and maintain positive macroeconomic figures,” he said.

However, “that won’t be of any use unless there is a more even distribution of wealth, and if we fail to put an emphasis on the need to reactivate production to generate more employment, and fail to combat poverty,” he argued.

After the first vote, on Oct. 20, Gutiérrez toned down his leftist, populist discourse.

He took a vague stance on several controversial questions like the FTAA, Ecuador’s adoption of the dollar as the local currency two years ago, and the use of the Manta military base by US forces for anti-drug trafficking operations.

He also traveled to the United States to meet with representatives of the US government, foreign investors, and International Monetary Fund authorities, irritating some sectors who backed him, which protested that what was needed was a more radical stance, to clearly mark him as the candidate of the left.

Right-wing campaign of sabotage escalates in Venezuela

By Stuart Munckton

Dec. 4— “Highways are blocked with barricades, creating huge traffic jams. Protests and tear gas fill streets; police patrols are few; residents stick by their radios and TVs, ingesting venomous political rhetoric while seeing if it’s safe to go out,” reported US-based Newsday.com on Nov. 24, describing the situation in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.

The right-wing opposition to President Hugo Chavez is threatening yet another general “strike” on Dec. 2 (the fourth this year) and the government has been forced to send the armed forces onto the streets of Caracas to control the anti-Chavez police force.

The Miami Herald reported that a poll of Venezuelans, carried out in August, found that 62 percent of respondents believed there would be a civil war and 25 percent indicated they would fight. The latter were split almost evenly between those who support the government of President Hugo Chavez and those who are opposed.

The responsibility for this situation lies firmly with the right-wing opposition. Following the failure of the 48-hour opposition-instigated, US-backed coup against Chavez in April, the opposition has orchestrated a campaign of destabilization and sabotage to bring down the elected government.

Mostly organized under the umbrella of the Democratic Coordinator, the campaign has been sustained by using the opposition’s control of the mass media, key sections of the economy, the main trade union federation, the Supreme Court, and the 9,000-strong Caracas police department.

This campaign has involved three general “strikes” (in reality lockouts by business), a savage anti-government media barrage, an on going rebellion by more than 100 military officers, and daily demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience aimed at creating maximum chaos. The Caracas police force, which is under the control of the anti-Chavez city mayor Alfredo Pena, has staged violent attacks on pro-Chavez demonstrators.

The opposition’s strategy appears to be to make the country as ungovernable as possible in the hope that most people will vote against Chavez in an attempt to restore stability, or to create a pretext for another coup.

Much to the frustration of the opposition, who refer to Chavez as a “dictator,” the government has shown remarkable tolerance. Much to the frustration of the anti-Chavez forces, not a single person has stood trial for their involvement in the April attempt to install a military dictatorship.

No action has been taken against the privately owned media, which openly collaborated with the coup plotters, other than verbal condemnation by Chavez. Top ranking military officers implicated in the April coup have been offered an amnesty.

Chavez has made repeated calls for dialogue, with the aim of reaching a compromise and drawing the country back from the brink of civil war. The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria, has been invited to broker talks between the government and opposition.

The opposition is refusing to negotiate anything unless Chavez first agrees to a referendum on his rule in December, despite the fact that the constitution does not allow a referendum until August next year.

As the opposition’s campaign of destabilization and violence has escalated, Chavez has come under increasing pressure from his poor and working-class supporters to take decisive action. The government has organized its supporters in preparation for another coup; it is said that there are now more than 2 million people who have joined the grassroots Bolivarian Circles.

After two pro-Chavez demonstrators were shot dead on Nov. 12, the government took control of the Caracas police force and sent National Guard and regular army troops to guard police stations around the capital. The demonstrators were shot by the Caracas police sharpshooters unit, the Grupo Felix. Chavez supporters accuse this death squad of a number of executions in poor neighborhoods.

Chavez declared the Caracas police to be the “armed spearhead of the opposition” and Pena’s private army. The police chief has been sacked and a new pro-government board appointed. Sections of the police who refused to accept the new leadership have been disarmed. The army has forced the police accept joint patrols to prevent attacks on Chavez supporters.

The opposition charged that the move was a “coup” and mobilized its supporters to take control of sections of the city. In response, Chavez supporters have mobilized to stop them.

Chavez has given indications that he is prepared to take further action against the opposition, with the threat that if businesses go ahead with the Dec. 2 general lockout, the government might forcibly reopen them and keep them running.

Source: Green Left Weekly

The ‘Buy American’ aid package

By Conn Hallinan

Nov. 27— The recent White House proposal to aid impoverished countries if they drop trade barriers and open their markets is likely to substantially accelerate the misery index in Latin America and Africa, the main targets of the $5 billion plan.

Entitled the Millennium Challenge Account, the administration says it will be doled out to countries like Senegal, Ghana, Bolivia, and Honduras if they institute “the rule of law,” as well as “sound fiscal policies.” This latter includes free trade for “American goods and services.”

But 15 years of free trade and open markets have inflicted ruinous damage on poor countries in Latin America and Africa. When added to the recently passed US Agriculture Bill that increases US export subsidies, this plan to tie aid to US political and economic rules will likely make an already bad situation worse.

Look at the record.

Some 15 years of free markets in Latin America has produced an anemic growth rate of 1.5 percent, far less than the 4 percent required to alleviate poverty. The wreckage caused by neoliberalism is strewn across the continent: Argentina recently defaulted on its international debt; Brazil is wrestling with a currency crisis brought on by debt; Uruguay’s economy is teetering; Chile has an unemployment rate frozen at 10 percent; Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador are deeply in economic crisis and sundered by social unrest.

In Latin America and elsewhere, America’s misguided economic policies — privatization of government-owned companies and services, abolishment controls on financial flows, and rapid trade liberalization including reduced protection for local farmers — are being blamed for rising economic and social problems. Yet these are the very same policies that poor countries are now being challenged to enforce if they want US “millennium aid.”

Pressured by Washington, countries have been lowering their trade barriers and as a result are drowning in a flood of cheap, subsidized US goods. Cheap Nebraskan corn, for instance, has largely replaced native Peruvian corn. It is not cheaper because Peruvian farmers don’t work hard, it is cheaper because US taxpayer subsidies keep US corn exports 20 percent below world prices. This is hardly the “level playing field” that US trade negotiators demand for US exports.

The situation is much the same in Mexico, where US subsidized corn now claims 25 percent of the market. On Jan. 1, when duties on wheat, rice, barley, potatoes, dairy products, poultry, pork, and beef are eliminated under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican agriculture is likely to be overwhelmed.

The Agriculture Bill grants $57 billion in direct subsidies to US farmers (most to huge agri-giants), which wins Midwestern votes but encourages overproduction and makes American crops cheaper than any in the world. US wheat sells for 46 percent less than its production cost. Poor countries buy US foodstuffs because they are cheaper than their own. But this puts tens of millions of small farmers in Latin America and Africa out of business, while running up huge foreign debts.

Since agriculture makes up 17 percent of the total economic activity in 48 Sub-Saharan nations – 50 percent in some — there is little these countries can export to pay that debt off, and there is no way they can match the economic power of American subsidies.

“This farm bill, I think it is fair to say, will put millions of small farmers out of business in Africa,” Mark Riche, president of the Institute of Agriculture policy in Minneapolis told the New York Times. “They will have to move to the cities and become part of the unemployed labor pools.”

The cycle of rising debt, chronic unemployment, and massive dislocations of rural populations is a time bomb, one that has already detonated in countries like Peru, where sewage system repairs were deferred in order to service a huge foreign debt. As farmers displaced by free trade poured into cities, water and sewage systems are collapsing, reintroducing cholera to millions of Latin Americans.

In Guatemala, the UN World Food Program says that 17 percent of children under five suffer from severe malnutrition, and chronic hunger has increased by a third throughout Central America.

The White House touts the new plan as a “bonus” over and above the regular US aid program, which certainly needs a boost. The US aid program has been steadily dropping — with the rate of US per capita development assistance among the lowest among Western nations. But administration officials told the New York Times that the proposal might spark cuts in “other forms of foreign assistance.” Given that the administration is facing its own major debt problems, plus a possible war with Iraq, US economic aid spending, already at a record 50-year low, will likely face new cuts.

Clearly, the US aid program needs reforming if it is to help reverse the alarming increases in the indices of world poverty and hunger. But the Challenge Millennium Account is more of the same failed approach to development aid. It will force desperately poor nations to compete for an aid pittance — $5 billion is the cost of 3 ½ B-2 Stealth bombers — and obligate them to institute policies that are already impoverishing them.

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

Palestinian culture under deadly seige

Compiled by Seán Marquis

Dec. 4 (AGR)— In a West Bank refugee camp, a drummer who wakes up residents for a pre-dawn meal during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan was killed by Israeli soldiers.

Raed Faour and Jihad Natour were walking through the streets and alleys of the New Asker refugee camp in Nablus early Wednesday, Nov. 27, banging their tambourine-like drums and singing a song to wake up the Muslim faithful and announce the approaching sunrise.

The drummers are a fixture in Muslim neighborhoods during the holy month of Ramadan, when families arise before daybreak to eat a meal because their religion requires them to fast from sunup to sundown.

Just before 3am, as the drummers were singing a song praising the Prophet Mohammed several Israeli soldiers emerged from a hiding spot behind a taxi, aimed their guns at them and shouted in Arabic, “Stop! Stop!” Faour said in an interview.

“They immediately started shooting,” he said, and Natour fell to the ground.

Palestinians said that Natour, 22, an unemployed carpenter, died in the street after Israeli soldiers refused to allow an ambulance to pass through an army checkpoint to take him to a hospital. Residents were outraged that a drummer was killed while fulfilling a ritual that has been a part of Ramadan observances for generations.

“This is the height of brutality because they are attacking our culture, our customs,” said a librarian, Naama Ajouri, 37.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers spotted the pair “and they were suspected because there was a curfew, and they were violating the curfew.”

“It’s not regular for people to walk in the street at that time of the night, and it raised questions. Two mistakes can be made,” the spokeswoman said. “You can either shoot when you’re not supposed to or not shoot when you should, and that’s a judgment. “

Faour, 28, an unemployed construction worker who has been a drummer during Ramadan for four years, said it was unlikely anyone could have mistaken them for anything else. Typically, since their duty is to wake people up, drummers make so much noise that they can be heard for several blocks in all directions.

“They are creating terror when they kill a person like him,” said Said Natour, 37, the older brother of Jihad.

“My brother was an innocent person,” he said. “They knew he was not armed. After all, they could hear him going around with a drum.”

Faour was taken into custody and released at around 4:30am. After his release, he returned to the street where his friend had been shot, he said, and found him in an alley, dead.

Attack, revenge, attack, revenge

Israel has pledged to track down those responsible for twin attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya, which officials said bore the hallmarks of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

A previously unknown militant group — describing itself as The Government of Universal Palestine in Exile, The Army of Palestine — issued a statement in Beirut, Lebanon, claiming responsibility.

The group said the attacks were timed to mark the eve of the anniversary of the Nov. 29, 1947, decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine and allow creation of a Jewish state.

In simultaneous attacks, three suicide bombers exploded a car at an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, killing 12 other people, and other attackers fired two missiles at — but missed — an Israeli plane after takeoff.

Dozens of others were wounded in the explosion at the Paradise Hotel. Three of the dead and 17 of the wounded were Israelis, officials said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed a swift revenge for the attacks.

“Our long arm will catch the attackers and those who dispatch them,” Sharon said. “No one will emerge unscathed.”

Kenyan police said they had arrested 12 people over the attack.

In Nairobi, a US embassy spokesman said the suicide bombers may have used US passports to enter the east African country.

“We do have indications through our own channels that they used US passports, but it is not a 100 percent confirmed,” spokesman Peter Claussen said.

In more tit for tat killings, Israeli aircraft firing a missile struck a building in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank Nov. 25, killing two local leaders of Palestinian militant groups, witnesses and doctors said.

They were identified as Alah Sabbagh, of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia, affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and Imad Nasrti, a leader of the Islamic group Hamas. They were in the same room on the first floor of the building when a missile came through the window and exploded, rescue workers said.

Just before the explosion, Palestinian witnesses said, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles entered the camp. Reports said that after the explosion, soldiers demolished what remained of the house.

On Nov. 28, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a local branch of Sharon’s Likud Party and a nearby outdoor bus terminal in the northern Israeli town of Beit Shean, killing six people and wounding more than 20.

The attack came at a time when Likud members were voting in a primary election between Sharon and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Sharon won with 55 percent of the vote and will head the Likud party in upcoming general elections.

The gunmen, who reportedly fired at random and also hurled grenades, were themselves shot dead by Israelis.

Al Aqsa said it carried out the attack, saying it was revenge for the deaths of Nasrti and Sabbagh.

Sharon called elections after his main coalition partner, the moderate Labor Party, quit on Oct. 30 in a dispute over funding to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile on Nov. 27 the United Nations (UN) filed a protest with the Israeli army for allegedly holding an Israeli UN employee at gunpoint while her house was searched for about two hours and her Palestinian husband was arrested.

The army said Allegra Pacheco, a lawyer for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees, does not have diplomatic immunity.

Sources: Associated Press, The Australian, BBC NEWS, Canadian Press, NY Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post

UN: more countries fighting violence against women

By Ushani Agalawatta

United Nations, Nov. 26 (IPS)— Rakiya Omaar works with some of the estimated 250,000 women who saw their loved ones killed and then were raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Today, Omaar helps the survivors tell their stories on videotape in an attempt to ensure the prosecution of the men who raped them.

The project is paid for by a special trust fund of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), which has provided more than seven million dollars in grants to 73 countries to help eliminate violence against women since 1996.

On Monday — a day dedicated to commemorating the struggle to eliminate violence against women worldwide — activists from around the world described efforts to combat and overcome violence against women in their communities.

Not only are Rwanda’s genocide survivors facing poverty and the loss of their families, many carry another burden, said Omaar, a Somali human rights activist and director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) African Rights.

“Given that AIDS was a widespread problem even before the genocide, it is not surprising that many of these women are living with the death sentence of HIV/AIDS,” she said.

Investing in adequate resources, political will, and creative partnerships are the keys to ending violence against women, UNIFEM head Noeleen Heyzer told delegates and activists here.

“Today the message is that we know how to end violence in women’s lives and we have effective strategies. We want a greater investment, and we want these strategies to be scaled up.”

“We don’t need to invent the wheel again; what we need is a sharing of experiences worldwide. We need a world community that is committed to ending violence against women because we know how to do it.”

Every 15 seconds a woman is battered in the United States, reports the UN “Study on The World’s Women, 2000.” In India, most reports of “accidental burns” are incidents where women were deliberately doused with kerosene and set on fire, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Egypt, a study of female murder victims found that family members perpetrated 47 percent of the deaths as “honor killings” after the women were raped.

A UNIFEM project on the West Bank and Gaza tries to sensitize the legal systems to these so-called “honor” killings.

The project researches “not the question of why they kill women but the question of what can we do in order to stop sexual abuse and basically choosing the issue of killing her as a way of solving the problem,” says Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a professor of criminology at Hebrew University and director at the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling.

UNIFEM now runs 18 projects in 22 countries, with funding from the governments of Japan, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Austria, the United Kingdom, Germany, and private foundations.

The Trust fund allocates one million dollars worth of grants each year; so far in 2002, funding requests total more than $15 million.

According to UNIFEM, more than 45 countries now have specific laws governing violence against women. Eleven of the 12 South East Asian countries have national plans to end violence, and 22 countries have revised existing laws to uphold women’s human rights.

Activists outline future anti-FTAA strategy

By Patricia Grogg

Havana, Cuba, Nov. 29 (IPS)— Activists opposed to the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreed in Havana to hold simultaneous protests throughout the Americas in September 2003, and to carry out regional coordination of the struggle against the continent-wide free trade agreement.

“Fighting against the FTAA means fighting against annexation and poverty,” states the final declaration signed by the nearly 1,000 delegates from more than 40 countries in the Americas and other regions who took part in the “Second Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle against the FTAA.”

The FTAA is a US-backed trade deal negotiated by all of the countries in the Americas — a total of 34 — with the exception of Cuba.

The action plan agreed on by the activists who gathered Monday through Thursday in the Cuban capital includes simultaneous marches, strikes, roadblocks, demonstrations, and other forms of protest across the Americas on Sept. 10, 2003.

That is also the date set for the start of the fifth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in Mexico.

The schedule of anti-FTAA activities over the next few months will also include informal popular plebiscites on the continent- wide free trade deal, greater dissemination of anti-FTAA activities, and efforts to “unmask” the ties between the foreign debt, military build-up, and free trade.

Participants agreed to work harder to get the debate on the FTAA incorporated in the agendas of national parliaments, and to monitor, as closely as possible, the closed-door negotiations of the FTAA and the WTO, both of which pose a “threat” to the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the activists.

In addition, the delegates agreed to work hard at fomenting higher-than-ever levels of attendance at the third annual edition of the World Social Forum, to be held Jan. 23-28 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

The US pushed for a clause in the FTAA framework agreement that only “democratically elected” governments may participate in the FTAA -- a phrase created to bar Cuba from the process. The Cuban government has said that the FTAA is designed “to devour” national economies in the region and exclusively benefit the United States.

Osvaldo Martínez, the director of the governmental Center for Research on the Global Economy, said that Washington’s real interest was in “penetrating the markets of Latin America and squashing national producers to compensate for its gigantic and growing trade deficit,” which amounted to $346 billion last year.

Participating in the meeting were representatives of progressive social and political organizations, trade unionists, peasant farmers, indigenous people, church activists, environmentalists, human rights advocates, journalists, parliamentarians, artists, and academics from throughout the region.

President Fidel Castro, who attended part of the sessions, said the movement against the FTAA showed a higher level of awareness this year than last, when Havana hosted the First Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle Against the FTAA.

Castro urged the activists not to “ignore” leftist parties in the region in their fight against the free trade initiative.

“It is very important to join forces,” said Castro. “Everyone who can contribute to this battle must be brought together,” he added, while recommending that the region’s small and medium-sized businesses should also be drawn into the struggle.

Cuban sociologist Aurelio Alonso said that the movement against the FTAA has grown and become stronger over the past year. “There is a greater level of clarity in the proposals, and stronger agreement about what should be done.”

The final declaration signed late Thursday underlined that in the year that has gone by since the first meeting, resistance against the “threat” posed by the FTAA has grown in strength.

“The first meeting mainly focused on explanations and analyses of what the FTAA consists of...But the most important and substantial part of this year’s event is the action plan,” said Argentine social researcher and activist Isabel Raubber.

The timeframe pushed by the United States establishes that the FTAA is to go into effect in January 2005. But several Latin American countries believe it is improbable that everything will be ready by that time, due to the discrepancies that have yet to be worked out.

Violence forces gay Jamaican men to seek asylum overseas

WORLD BRIEFS

UN: water is a
human right

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, made up of 18 human rights experts who are designated by member governments but act in an independent capacity, issued a statement Nov. 25 declaring access to water a human right and stating that water is a social and cultural good, not merely an economic commodity. Prior to the adoption of the document, representatives from the public sector, private enterprise and independent institutions engaged in debate that focused on ownership of water resources and the appropriateness of privatizing production and distribution systems. However, the statement does clearly define the public nature of water as “a limited natural resource and a public commodity fundamental to life and health. The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, affordable, physically accessible, safe and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses.” (IPS)

Thousands march for release of global justice activists

As many as 100,000 anti-corporate globalization protesters marched through the Italian city of Cosenza on Nov. 21 to demand the release of 14 activists still in custody of the 20 arrested by Italian police last week. The activists were charged with subversion for disrupting the G8 summit last year in Genoa, where one activist was killed and hundreds were injured by police. (AFP)

Amnesty Int’l
attacks UK Iraq torture dossier

The British government was accused Nov. 2 of manipulating information on human rights abuses in Iraq to build its case for war against Saddam Hussein. The report contains graphic accounts by victims of the regime’s human rights abuses and makes clear that the abuses are carried out as a policy of the Iraqi dictator. Amnesty International said the dossier released by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, listing torture, rapes and other abuses perpetrated by the Baghdad regime, is a “cold and calculated manipulation” of the work of human rights activists. “Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International’s reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf war,” the group’s secretary general, Irene Khan, said. (Guardian UK)

10,000 Turks
protest possible
US war on Iraq

About 10,000 anti-war demonstrators gathered in Istanbul Nov. 29 to protest a possible US-led war in neighboring Iraq. NATO-member Turkey is a close US ally, but anti-war sentiment is running high. Officials here are reluctant to support military action against Iraq, and have not committed to allowing the use of Turkish territory or air bases crucial to any US war effort. The rally came days before US Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were scheduled to arrive in Turkey to discuss the possible military action. Turkish officials say the 1991 Gulf war cost Turkey more than $40 billion from loss of trade with Iraq. It fears a new war in the region would further ravage its economy. “We’re here to show how much we oppose war,” said Zarife Havlu, a 46-year-old teacher. “War means poverty and hunger.” (AP)

Mexican women march for justice

In Mexico City on Nov. 23 more than 1,000 women participated in a Women in Black procession, held to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to demand that those responsible for killing hundreds of women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez be brought to justice. More than 300 girls and women have been killed in the town since 1993. Despite several federal and state investigations, authorities have been unable to identify the killers or establish a motive. The march aimed to symbolize the lost souls of the victims wandering in search of justice and leaving a trail of blood behind them. (BBC News)

Mexican farmers demand NAFTA changes

Mexican farmers, organized by the National Union of Agricultural Workers, the National El Barzon Movement and the Coalition of Democratic Urban and Campesino Organizations, blocked the entrances to the Senate building in Mexico City with sacks of grain for three hours on Nov. 21 to demand renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement sections affecting agriculture. Trade between Mexico and the other two NAFTA members, Canada and the US, is “severely distorted” by the subsidies Canadian and US farmers get from their governments, the protesters charged. The farmers ended the demonstration after senators agreed to try to increase the budget for the agricultural sector.

In Washington, Assistant Agriculture Secretary J. B. Penn announced that the US rejects “any opening or renegotiation of NAFTA.” Penn advised the Mexican government “to focus on structural reforms in the countryside and not on constructing barriers against free trade.” Ironically, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, which imposed NAFTA and the 1992 reforms at a time when it virtually monopolized governmental power, is now trying to lead the growing opposition to these policies. (Weekly Update on the Americas)

Underfunded Human Rights Court at risk of collapse

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is nearing the end of its yearly sessions without having resolved severe budgetary problems that threaten to topple it. The Court, which handles cases in which states are accused of human rights abuses, is the highest court of the Organization of American States (OAS). Cases are referred to it by the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Court has already ruled in favor of six murder victim’s families against the Colombian military and police and is currently involved in a lawsuit brought against the Argentine government by a businessman whose documents proving ownership of his companies were taken from him. The Court fears that the regional human rights system could collapse without an expansion of the budget that would allow judges to work year-round, because the caseload continues to grow. (IPS)

Peace campaigners in UK stage ‘die-in’ against Iraq war

A demonstration organized by Voices in the Wilderness UK, the latest in a series of protests held throughout Britain, included scores of people bandaged as wounded and lying down dead on the road outside the Prime Minister’s Office, causing traffic chaos. Those taking part in the non-violent civil disobedience included a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, and political comedian Mark Thomas. “The projected war with Iraq is immoral, illegal, unnecessary and counter-productive. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people will almost certainly be killed if the war takes place,” Voices of the Wilderness said in promoting the demonstration. (Islamic Republic News Agency)

Four more
officials cleared
of Timor violence

A human rights court in Indonesia, set up to deflect pressure for an international war crimes tribunal, has acquitted two former military officials, a police chief and a government head on charges of crimes against humanity during East Timor’s bloody independence vote in 1999. Out of 18 defendants, this takes to 10 the number of people cleared by the court -- most of them Indonesian officers and one a civilian. Only two have been found guilty -- both ethnic Timorese. Sidney Jones, Indonesia director of the International Crisis group, said she believes a deal was reached before the court was set up to ensure no army officers are convicted over the military-backed violence against independence supporters. Human rights lawyer Hendardi described the court as a sham. “The human rights court is being used by military officers to wash their hands of their crimes in East Timor. It shows that they still enjoy privileges and are still untouchable by the arm of the law.” (AFP, BBC)

Australian gov’t wants preemptive strike option

In a live interview on a national current affairs program on Nov. 29, Prime Minister John Howard was asked if he would act against terrorists based in another country planning to attack Australia. “Oh yes, I think any Australian Prime Minister would,” he said. He went a step further by suggesting that the United Nations charter be reviewed to allow a country to launch a preemptive strike against “terrorists” in other countries. Despite the outrage his statements have caused among governments across Asia, the Howard government bluntly defended his comments. The administration is pressing the Senate to pass legislation to give sweeping powers -- that have been subject to widespread condemnation from human rights and legal groups -- to security agencies. Senator Bob Brown of the Green Party urged Howard to withdraw his statement and apologize. “It damages our relationship not only with the countries in our neighborhood, but obviously it creates a lot of tension,” he said. (IPS)