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Hundreds of thousands march
in support of Chávez
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Israel raids, seals off Gaza City, 100
buildings demolished
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Africa activists denounce
Bush's 'malign neglect'
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Bolivian coca-growing leader threatens
government with uprising
go to story
WEF attendees criticize US foreign policy
go to story
Romanian villagers wary of gold mine project
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Group decries repression of
students, teachers in Ethiopia
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BRIEFS
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Hundreds of thousands
march
in support of Chávez
By Humberto Márquez
Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 23 (IPS)-- Hundreds of thousands of supporters
of embattled Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez bused in from all
over the country to march in the capital Thursday in support of their
leader, while the broad opposition movement held 23 demonstrations in
smaller cities around the country.
“Chávez Won't Go!” was the most frequently chanted slogan
of the huge crowd, in which red -- the symbol of the “Chavistas”
-- was the dominant color, with people wearing red clothes and berets
and waving red placards and flags as they marched to the Avenida Bolívar,
where the president spoke.
Shortly before his speech, one person was killed and 12 were injured when
an explosive device went off outside the entrance to a subway station
near the pro-government rally.
In the country's interior, in the meantime, the opposition protested a
ruling handed down by the Supreme Court Wednesday, which suspended a non-binding
opposition-backed Feb. 2 referendum on Chávez's rule.
“This is the man who took away the power of the rich and corrupt
who governed for 40 years,” said march participant Nancy Colina,
a 42-year-old mother of two who prepares and sells fruit preserves in
Aragua de Maturín, a small town in eastern Venezuela. “He
can't leave, because we won't let him!”
Colina stepped off of one of the buses “in which the eastern patriots
were riding,” she said. Hundreds of buses brought in government supporters
from every region, demonstrating the continued resistance against the
eight-week-old strike in the oil industry aimed at paralyzing the country.
The shutdown declared on Dec. 2 by a coalition of anti-government business
associations, trade unions, political parties, and executives and managers
of the state oil monopoly PDVSA is demanding that the president step down
and call early elections.
Ramón García, a bus driver from the Andean mountain state
of Trujillo in western Venezuela, told IPS that “those who have to
go are Ortega and the Fernández's” -- an allusion to the heads
of the labor, business, and oil movements leading the strike: Carlos Ortega,
Carlos Fernández, and Juan Fernández.
The show of support for Chávez, who has the staunch backing of
at least one-fourth of the electorate, according to most opinion polls,
was staged on the eve of the first meeting in Washington Friday of the
foreign ministers of the “Group of Friends” of Venezuela.
The group, which was set up on Jan. 15, is comprised of Brazil, Chile,
Portugal, Spain, and the United States, and its mission is to help come
up with a solution to the crisis in Venezuela.
The ministers will discuss a proposal set forth this week by Nobel Peace
laureate Jimmy Carter for an “electoral solution” this year,
which could be either an August referendum to revoke Chávez's mandate
or a constitutional amendment that would allow early elections to be called.
The governing coalition also received backing from a Constitutional Court
decision that ruled that the people can only rebel against the government
during a dictatorship, and not against their democratically elected representatives.
On Wednesday, the Central Bank, which holds more than 80 percent of the
foreign currency that enters the country, mainly the product of oil exports,
suspended foreign exchange trading until Jan 29.
“We are establishing foreign exchange controls to strengthen the
international reserves, defend the bolivar, and fuel economic and social
recovery,” said Chávez in a message to the nation late Wednesday.
The measure is “a temporary one, aimed at resolving short-term problems,
in response to the effects of the irrational and absurd action taken by
the oil industry since December,” said Finance Minister Tobías
Nóbrega.
The ministry of Energy and Mines reported earlier this month that the
losses to the oil industry caused by the strike already totaled four billion
dollars.
But sources with the ministry told IPS Thursday that “the figure
may be twice that, if we don't only count the revenues we have stopped
receiving, but also the costs of getting, at least partially, the industry's
infrastructure operating again.”
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Israel raids, seals
off Gaza City,
100 buildings demolished
Compiled by Seán Marquis
Jan. 29 (AGR)-- Between Friday and Sunday Israeli forces staged several
assaults into Gaza City ending on Monday with the sealing off of the city
until after Israel's Tuesday general elections.
Israeli attack helicopters fired 11 missiles at Gaza City early Friday,
hitting a chapel in a hospital and several workshops as tanks rolled into
the city.
Witnesses said a missile scored a direct hit on an Anglican chapel in
the Ahli Hospital compound in the center of Gaza City, destroying the
church roof and leaving a large crater in front of the altar.
Palestinians said the other missiles were aimed at workshops and six people
were wounded.
Israeli forces dynamited four road overpasses on Saturday, isolating the
northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun after home-made rockets were fired
on Israeli territory from the area a day earlier, Palestinian and Israeli
military sources said.
The Saturday operation followed closely on the heels of an overnight assault
on Beit Hanun that left a 16-year-old boy dead and about 20 Palestinians
wounded in the fierce gunbattles that followed.
Israel on Sunday mounted its deepest thrust into Gaza City in 28 months,
killing 12 Palestinians and wounding more than 50.
Witnesses said dozens of armored vehicles backed by missile-firing helicopters
rumbled into the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, a stronghold of the
militant Islamic group Hamas.
At least six Palestinians were killed, three by a missile from the air,
and dozens wounded, hospital officials said. An Israeli military source
said troops came under fire from gunmen with assault rifles, explosives
and anti-tank missiles as calls rang out from mosques for armed Palestinians
to confront the Israelis, the witnesses said.
"Every man with a weapon must rush to the streets and defend Palestinian
honor," loudspeakers blared amid thunderous explosions.
More than 100 buildings were flattened during the raid. The military claimed
they were weapons workshops and that rockets and anti-tank missiles were
seized. Palestinians said most were shops wrecked indiscriminately in
the attack.
The defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, said the army hit weapons factories
in Gaza after Hamas fired 10 mortars on the Israeli town of Sderot on
Friday.
Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi, a Hamas spokesman threatened a bloody retaliation.
"Our reaction will include mass death," he said.
Most, possibly all, of the dead were men in their late teens and twenties.
Gaza City residents said most of them were armed fighters.
The Israeli army sealed off Gaza and the West Bank Sunday night to prevent
attacks by militants until after polling in tomorrow's elections.
After Israeli forces withdrew at about 5am, four other rockets were fired
from Gaza at Sederot and three other communities in the Negev desert.
No injuries were reported in either attack.
The surge in violence came against the backdrop of talks between Palestinian
factions in Cairo on an Egyptian proposal for a one-year unilateral cease-fire.
The Egyptian cease-fire proposal was outlined in a document that also
upheld the right to resist occupation and retain Yassir Arafat as Palestinian
president.
A Palestinian official said the groups -- ranging from Arafat's mainstream
Fatah to Islamist and Marxist factions -- wanted to make Egypt's proposal
conditional on an Israeli commitment to end its violence.
Agreement to a one-year unilateral cease-fire seemed a long shot from
the outset. Several factions such as key militant groups Hamas and Islamic
Jihad rejected it before talks even began. Only Fatah has endorsed the
idea so far.
The Israeli Army also staged mass round-ups in the West Bank in a crack
down prior to Tuesday's general election and has over 1,000 Palestinians
in detention camps.
In the past week, the Israeli military has detained close to 200 Palestinian
men in night-time raids or using undercover squads posing as Arabs to
snatch them off the streets.
The army says more than a dozen of those detained in the past week were
suicide bombers preparing for attacks and many others were on a wanted
list for activities with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other “terrorist
organizations.”
This month, the number of Palestinian prisoners held in administrative
detention, a form of internment without trial in which suspects can be
held indefinitely on the signature of a senior army officer, exceeded
1,000 for the first time in 12 years. A year ago, the figure stood at
36.
Yael Stein, research director of the B’Tselem human rights group
in Israel, says that administrative detention is a Kafkaesque nightmare.
“The prisoners are held on the signature of a major-general. They
don’t know what the charges are against them. They have the right
of appeal but it’s before a military court and because they don’t
know what they are accused of they can’t present a defense.
“The detention orders are between four and six months, and when they
expire the army just issues another one."
“It’s a very cheap and easy alternative to a criminal trial,"
Stein added. "The army don’t have to prove anything. "
Jewish group condemns demolition of village market
New York Jews Against the Occupation (JATO), a New York group of Jewish
and Israeli human rights activists, condemned the Israeli army’s
Jan. 20 demolition of Nazlet Issa, a Palestinian market village.
“Nazlet Issa is comprised of 170 Palestinian-owned shops which attract
both Jewish and Arab customers from both sides of the Green Line. Six
thousand area residents depend on the shops for their livelihood,”
said David Bloom, a freelance reporter and JATO member currently working
in the West Bank.
“Palestinians here are not at war, they’re just under occupation.
They have no tanks, the vast majority have no guns. All they can do to
resist is try to live, work, eat. The demolition of Nazlet Issa is an
assault on Palestinians’ will to stay alive,” continued Bloom.
Palestinians say they were given 24 hours to empty buildings which included
shops, a pharmacy and a medical center before they were destroyed by Israeli
bulldozers.
They say the local economy has been left in ruins.
“What happens when your home, your livelihood, all your means of
civic resistance are stripped away from you? You rely on the people who
are willing to carry guns,” said Emmaia Gelman, a New York JATO member
who worked in the West Bank in 2002, “This demolition is an attempt
by the Israeli army to force Palestinians into total desperation, and
the violence that follows it.”
JATO recognizes Israel’s systematic economic attacks on Palestinians
as a tool for perpetuating human rights violations, fostering a colonial
dependency on Israel and dismantling Palestinian civil society.
Officer refuses to kill innocents
An Israeli intelligence officer who feared a planned air strike would
kill innocent Palestinians foiled the attack by holding back information
critical to the mission, the Maariv newspaper said on Monday.
The officer's act of disobedience this month was the latest in a series
of actions taken by Israelis opposed to the tough tactics Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon has employed against a Palestinian uprising for statehood.
Maariv said the officer, a lieutenant in an elite intelligence unit, delayed
passing on information for an air raid planned against a Palestinian city
after 22 people were killed on Jan. 6 in a double suicide bombing in Tel
Aviv.
The officer, who was not identified, told a military tribunal he acted
out of conscience, saying innocent people would have been killed and calling
his orders illegal under international law, the newspaper reported.
The court tribunal rejected his argument and transferred him to a less
prestigious intelligence unit, Maariv said.
Asked about the report, the army spokesman's office confirmed an intelligence
officer was removed from his post after disobeying a direct order and
impairing a military operation, but the spokesman declined to give details.
Sources: Associated Press, The Australian,
BBC News, Dawn, Guardian (UK), Independent (UK), Reuters
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Africa activists denounce
Bush's 'malign neglect'
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Jan. 23 (IPS)-- US activists for Africa are strongly
denouncing what they call the administration's “malign neglect”
of the continent, insisting that Africa's problems represent a more serious
threat to long-term US security interests than radical Islamist terrorism.
The region's economies, collapsing under the combined weight of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, unsustainable debt burdens, and ongoing civil wars and violence
in key countries, represent permanent threats to US global interests in
a stable world order, said the groups, including Africa Action, Jubilee
USA Network, and Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), on Thursday.
They spoke out one week after President George W. Bush was supposed to
have completed his first trip to Africa, in what had been billed as a
concrete symbol of his interest in the continent. But citing pressing
matters at home, Bush put off the visit until some time later this year,
a decision, according to Africa Action director Salih Booker, that drove
home the “second class status” that Washington policy-makers
accord Africa.
The administration's single-minded pursuit of the “war on terror”
and its preoccupation with Iraq and North Korea have pushed Africa to
the margins, said the groups, which charge the administration's interest
in the region is confined to its geographical proximity to the Arabian
Peninsula and to its oil supplies.
“The shift is really back to a Cold War framework,” said Booker.
“Africa is seen as a piece of geo-strategic real estate, used for
its oil and as a staging area for military operations only.”
“Washington must move African concerns from the margins of US foreign
policy to the center if it is to sharpen its focus on the most destabilizing
international threats and the most urgent global priorities,” he
stressed.
Foremost among these is the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has already killed
nearly 20 million Africans and created 12 million AIDS orphans in the
region, and now represents “the single greatest global threat to
human security today, far more deadly than terrorists or the alleged existence
of Iraqi weapons,” Booker said at a press briefing.
Africa Action and other activist groups are calling for Bush to request
and Congress to approve at least $3.5 billion per year for the Global
Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria, to which the US has contributed
a mere $500 million in the last two fiscal years.
The Global Fund, which is already running short of money to fund projects
in Africa and other AIDS-affected regions, has estimated that to contain
what has become the worst epidemic in recorded history, it will need more
than $10 billion a year by 2005 and $15 billion a year by 2007.
Despite US National Intelligence Council warnings last September that
the disease is poised to wreak economic and social havoc in five major
regional powers -- Russia, China, India, Ethiopia, and Nigeria -- over
the next decade, the administration has failed to devote a fraction of
the resources it already has applied to its “war on terrorism.”
“Years from now, people will ask about AIDS in Africa the way they
ask now about the [Nazi] Holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda,” said
Booker, echoing the recent words of a United Nations official, “and
the AIDS pandemic is still in its global infancy.”
After a recent trip to southern Africa, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS,
Stephen Lewis told a press conference last week that those who watch the
AIDS pandemic unfold “with a kind of pathological equanimity”
must be held to account.
“There may yet come a day when we have peacetime tribunals to deal
with this particular version of crimes against humanity,” he added.
Greatly complicating the ability of African nations to address HIV/AIDS,
according to Marie Clarke, national coordinator of the Jubilee Network,
is the region's huge debt burden. Governments spend $14.5 billion a year
to service that debt, much of which dates from the Cold War period when
western-supported dictators were encouraged to borrow heavily for projects
that were of little or no value to most of their citizens.
That money could be used instead to rebuild overburdened health-care systems,
already gravely weakened by two decades of US-backed World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) structural-adjustment programs (SAPs), according to
Clarke. “We can't talk about fighting AIDS if we don't talk about
the debt,” she said.
The Bank and IMF have also been administering the Highly Indebted Poor
Country (HIPC) program to help reduce debt loads, but even they now admit,
at least internally, that HIPC support for many AIDS-afflicted African
countries will be insufficient to make the debt sustainable, let alone
to make enough funds available to fight the disease.
“Millions die while our administration withholds life-saving debt
cancellation,” Clarke said, adding that the debt burden has also
become “a major source of global inequality” that feeds resentment
and bitterness against the West.
While the administration continues mouthing support for human rights,
democratization, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts that have left
hundreds of thousands of Africans in recent years killed or displaced,
its preoccupation with security, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks on New York and the Pentagon, has resulted in the strengthening
of repressive governments and institutions, said Adotei Akwei of AIUSA.
This has been particularly true in East Africa and the Horn, where there
has already been a significant deployment of US troops, but it also extends
to the supply of military aid and training elsewhere on the continent,
notably to West African oil-producing nations, whose percentage contribution
to total daily US oil imports is expected to rise from 15 percent today
to 25 percent by 2020.
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Bolivian coca-growing
leader threatens government with uprising
By Raúl Pierri
Montevideo, Uruguay, Jan. 20 (IPS)-- Former Bolivian presidential candidate
Evo Morales threatened to launch a campaign to overthrow the government
if it does not respond Tuesday to demands by coca farmers who have been
manning a roadblock on the country's main highway for the past week.
President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada did not rule out the possibility
of declaring a state of siege to clamp down on the sporadic attempts by
small farmers from the central coca-producing region of Chapare to block
traffic on the highway that connects the cities of Cochabamba and Santa
Cruz, the hub of the country's commercial activity.
But peasant leader and parliamentarian Morales, with the leftist Movement
Towards Socialism (MAS), warned that he could call for “civil disobedience”
if the government decides to declare a state of emergency in response
to the farmers' demands for more land for growing coca, used here for
traditional medicinal and ritual purposes. Coca also provides the raw
material used to produce cocaine.
Sánchez de Lozada accused Morales of inciting “sedition,”
trying to “destroy democracy,” and “distract public opinion,”
besides hurting the possibility for economic growth and the implementation
of a job-creation plan this year as a result of the continued roadblocks.
At least 19 demonstrators have died and hundreds have been arrested since
Jan. 13 in clashes with the more than 7,000 police and military troops
sent by the government to keep order in Chapare.
Five farmers and one miner died in shoot-outs with the security forces,
while 13 pensioners participating in a demonstration died when the bus
in which they were fleeing a police crackdown rolled over.
Parallel to the coca-growers conflict, associations of retirees have been
holding protests to demand the adjustment of their pensions according
to the exchange rate of the local currency, the bolivar, against the dollar,
rather than being adjusted to inflation as under the current system.
The government justified the repression by arguing that roadblocks are
expressly prohibited by the Bolivian constitution.
The farmers, backed by the labor movement, are also calling for a suspension
of the government plan for the eradication of illicit drug crops promoted
by the United States, an increase in spending on health and education,
and Bolivia's withdrawal from the negotiations for the creation of the
continent-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
In addition, they are opposed to the government's plan to export Bolivian
natural gas to the United States from a Pacific Ocean port in Chile.
Morales announced that if the government did not heed the demonstrators'
demands, he would launch a national campaign under the slogan “Out
with Goñi [Sánchez de Lozada's nickname] and [Vice-President]
Carlos Mesa, who are unfit, murderers of the people and guilty of betrayal
of the fatherland.”
Last weekend, MAS, the Bolivian Workers Union, and unions of teachers,
peasant farmers, and students announced the creation of an “Estado
Mayor del Pueblo Boliviano,” a sort of people's command.
The organization called on the government to meet “each and every
one of the just and legitimate demands of the popular sectors.”
The “Estado Mayor” said they would take even more radical measures
if the government failed to respond to their demands by Tuesday.
Sánchez de Lozada urged the farmers to accept a truce in order
to hold talks, and said he was willing to consider an amendment to Law
1008, which permits farmers to plant a total of 12,000 hectares of coca
for food and medicine, or traditional and ritual uses.
However, the president ordered the farmers to immediately abandon the
468-km long Cochabamba-Santa Cruz highway, where they pile up stones and
logs at night or whenever the troops and police are absent to prevent
any vehicles from passing.
“The blockade is blocking solutions,” said the president, who
said a state of siege may be declared “if necessary.”
“It is standing in the way of satisfying the demands of all sectors
that are seeking the government's attention.”
The farmers say demand for coca leaves for traditional uses has increased,
and are asking for an expansion of the area in which they would be allowed
to grow the crop. They are also demanding a suspension of the forced eradication
policy.
“Studies of the market for legal uses of coca leaves will show us
how much is necessary for traditional and medicinal consumption of the
plant. That could signify the modification of Law 1008, because it could
lead to an increase in the number of hectares on which cultivation is
authorized,” said the president.
The Bolivian government is under pressure from Washington, which in its
10-year anti-narcotics plan calls on Latin America to reduce its marijuana
and coca plantations to zero by 2007.
The governments of Hugo Banzer, who stepped down due to poor health (1997-2001),
and Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002) eliminated more than 60,000 hectares of
coca, plants that Washington and La Paz say were destined for the illegal
drug trade.
Clashes between farmers and security forces in Chapare have grown more
frequent since the anti-coca program was stepped up under the administration
of the now-deceased Banzer. At least 200 peasant farmers and soldiers
have died as a result of the ongoing conflict.
back to top
WEF attendees criticize
US foreign policy
Compiled by Shane Perlowin
Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28 (AGR)— The World Economic Forum (WEF)
ran Jan. 23-28 against a background of US war posturing towards Iraq,
a stagnant world economy, and a growing mistrust of how the world economy
is being run by the very same institutions that dominate the forum.
Ironically, the main official theme of the gathering was “building
trust.”
More than 2,300 participants including heads of state, business leaders
and representatives from international organizations attended the 33rd
annual meeting.
Harsh criticism of US policy over Iraq and heated discussion about the
United States’ role as the world's only superpower dominated the
normally polite seminars of the WEF.
Again and again, world leaders and other participants in the five-day
forum criticized US plans to topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein and they charged the United States with hypocrisy for its policies
on human rights and refusal to sign international treaties.
It was a dramatic change in the tone of the forum, which has been dominated
in the past by US chief executives, academics and Washington policy-makers,
and whose sessions frequently were used to tout US solutions to world
problems.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a veteran Asian leader, accused
the West of seeking to impose its brand of capitalist democracy by force
and starving or bombing those who did not accept that model. His warning
jolted the opening session of the WEF.
He suggested that suicide bombers and hijackers such as those who attacked
the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were driven by poverty and despair.
“Out-terrorizing the terrorists will not work, but removing the causes
for terrorism will,” Mahathir said.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Washington for maintaining
its own stock of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons while insisting
that Iraq must stop its development of weapons of mass destruction.
“No one is interested in eliminating their weapons of mass destruction,”
Erdogan said, “I mean all the countries in the world, the US included.
When you talk about WMD, you cannot [distinguish] between small and large
states.”
The Bush administration was also charged repeatedly with fomenting racism
by singling out people from Middle Eastern countries or with dark complexions
for extra screening at airports and border points as part of its campaign
against terrorism.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School
of Public Administration, said Washington exacerbates anti-American sentiment
by constantly reminding others that it is the world's only superpower.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that what
the United States needed was “better behavior” rather than “a
better sales job." Roth said that he could not understand the Bush
administration's attitude on many international issues, including its
recent vote against a UN resolution that called on countries involved
in the battle against terrorism to respect human rights.
Swiss President Pascal Couchepin spelled out the majority view in much
of Western Europe when he said war in Iraq was not inevitable and would
have dangerous, destabilizing consequences for the Middle East, notably
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Couchepin said, “The use of force can only be the last resort after
all other means of persuasion have been exhausted.”
Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, president of the International
Crisis Group think-tank, said that military action might yet be averted
because of Saddam Hussein’s survival instinct in the face of a US
and British military build-up, international pressure on Washington not
to act unilaterally, and domestic unease about war in the United States.
Evans said, “I am naive enough to believe that war is avoidable.”
US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that without strong international
action to disarm, Iraq could use its lethal weapons or share its technology
with terrorists.
“Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction,” Powell
said, “We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military
action against Iraq alone.”
Powell indicated that the United States is willing to take additional
steps to respond to North Korea's concerns about a possible US military
attack. He reaffirmed that the United States has no intention of attacking
North Korea.
To applause and cheers, Brazil's new leftist president appeared Sunday
before the elite economic conference he once scorned and called for a
massive drive to defeat poverty and hunger across the globe.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told hundreds of delegates, "Countries
are spending billions and billions of dollars in an arms race and spending
money on things that are not priorities. We look at the third world countries
and millions and millions of women and children die because they don't
manage to eat the calories they need."
Silva said he was bringing with him the same message that he gave on Friday
to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He called for Western
governments and big investors to create a global fund to fight poverty
and hunger around the world.
Thousands of anti- corporate globalization demonstrators braved a stiff
security cordon on Saturday to confront world leaders and denounce the
threatened US attack on Iraq.
Hundreds more protesters were blocked at police checkpoints outside Davos,
the Swiss ski resort where the WEF is held.
Police boarded trains to check passengers' bags, creating a stop-and-start
flow of protesters into Davos.
Hundreds of activists refused to get off a train at the transit station
of Fideris and pass through a security gauntlet they said was unacceptable
in a democratic society.
Many protesters clashed with police at a regional railway junction in
nearby Landquart. Officers used tear gas and water cannon on the crowd.
Many would-be marchers never made it to Davos when officers refused to
board what they thought to be overfilled trains, which sat stalled as
activists refused to disembark.
Police turned tear gas and water cannon on more than 1,000 demonstrators
who descended on the capital of Berne on Saturday night.
In Davos, more than 2,000 demonstrators, many with painted faces and elaborate
costumes, hung up banners with slogans such as “No Business over
Dead Bodies,” “Leave Iraq in peace, stop the Bush warriors”
and “Against the terror of ‘free’ markets.”
“I came from Berlin to take part, to demonstrate against this new
robber baron capitalism, this ultra-imperialist policy in which the world's
most powerful countries unite to loot countries of the resources they
need -- for example oil in Iraq -- and then use them to pay for the war
and destruction,” said Jochen Schemetzko, a theater director.
Swiss officials mounted an unprecedented security clampdown -- including
fighter jets on patrol overhead ready to shoot down intruding aircraft
-- to “protect delegates” and prevent an approved demonstration
from “turning violent.”
Several helicopters circled over the Davos conference center.
Hundreds of police in riot gear and about 300 troops were deployed in
and around the chic mountain town for the summit. Troops in neighboring
Germany were on standby in case of need, police sources said.
The security measures cost the Swiss authorities some $10 million, about
$5,000 for each of the 2,000 elites of finance, business and politics
in attendance.
Sources: Associated Press, BBC, Friends of
the Earth, Inter Press Service Reuters, Toronto Globe & Mail, The
Wall Street Journal
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Romanian villagers
wary
of gold mine project
By Marian Chiriac
Bucharest, Romania, Jan. 27 (IPS)-- Deep in the Apuseni mountains of
western Romania, Rosia Montana village is sitting on a gold mine. But
not everyone here is happy about it.
Most of the poverty-stricken locals and several non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) are opposing a project promoted by Canadian company Gabriel Resources
for fully exploiting the mine, which contains some of Europe’s largest
gold reserves.
They say the project will destroy an entire valley with its numerous Roman
mine galleries, ancient churches, and other important archaeological landmarks,
and force more than 2,000 people to leave their homes.
“A large majority of the people are opposed to this resettlement
operation. Nobody has consulted the population and asked whether they
agree to move from their homes,” said Eugen David, president of a
local group opposed to the proposed mine. “Nobody has asked if they
[the people in the area] agree that their churches and cemeteries be excavated.”
Gold mining has been about the only industry in these mountains for two
millennia. Even the Romans invaded the area to plunder the gold reserves.
While some view the $420 million that the Canadian company wants to sink
into the mine as an economic lifeline to a depressed and isolated region
affected by 25 percent unemployment, others are concerned that the company
will simply exploit them and leave them empty-handed.
“I live in a cramped two-room apartment and hope for a better-paid
job and a new home. In fact, everyone here wants investment, but they
do not want to move,” said a former mining engineer.
The mining company has to relocate more than 800 homes and 2,000 people
in order to start the exploitation works. It has promised them money and
new homes.
Early last week the Local Council in Rosia Montana has announced starting
procedures for selling the land necessary for relocation.
The Romanian government, which holds a 20 percent share in the project,
gave Gabriel Resources the license to exploit the site, but the Canadian
company still needs the environmental authorization.
Bucharest officials said it would make no concessions on safety standards
and all approvals related to the project will be in line with international
regulations.
The massive project will enable Gabriel Resources to extract 300 metric
tons of gold and 1,700 tons of silver over 14 years. The extracted rocks
will be treated with cyanide, a highly toxic substance that is used in
gold mining to separate gold particles from ground rock.
Environmentalists are opposing the project. Reports by Greenpeace and
Friends of the Earth claim Gabriel Resources’ plans to build a tailings
pond near the opencast mine to store water with cyanide would cause massive
environmental damage.
The company has repeatedly rejected such charges, saying it would install
a four-million-dollar cyanide destroyer at the planned ore processing
plant.
Romania has seen a series of cyanide accidents in recent years. The January
2000 spillage of cyanide into the river Tisza from the Baia Mare gold
mine in western Romania killed thousands of fish and polluted the drinking
water for 2.5 million people. Hundreds fell ill because authorities did
not tell the nearby villages their water had been contaminated until two
weeks after the event.
Although the Romanian government, blaming exceptional weather conditions,
claims the Baia Mare accident was a natural disaster, the spillage prompted
widespread criticism of the use of cyanide in gold mining.
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Group decries repression
of
students, teachers in Ethiopia
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, Jan. 24 (IPS)-- Ethiopia's attacks on the freedom of
expression of students and teachers should be criticized much more strongly
by western countries, despite their deepening alliances with the government
in Addis Ababa, says a report released here Friday by Human Rights Watch
(HRW).
The 52-page report, “Lessons in Repression: Violations of Academic
Freedom in Ethiopia,” concludes that the government of Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi, which came to power in 1991, has committed serious abuses
against dissident students, including summary killings, arbitrary arrests,
and torture.
It has also repressed the independent Ethiopian Teachers' Association
(ETA), whose members include many of the country's most distinguished
professors, as part of a broader effort to stifle academic freedom, the
report says.
“Ethiopia's security forces have targeted students and teachers because
they are among the most politically active elements of Ethiopian society,”
said Saman Zia-Zarifi, HRW's academic freedom director. “There is
no excuse for shooting unarmed students or civilians exercising their
rights,” he added in reference to two major incidents over the past
year.
The report comes as Ethiopia, which is enduring a punishing drought that
has put 11 million of its 64 million people at risk, is seeking massive
food aid from the international community.
At the same time, Addis Ababa, whose proximity to Sudan, Somalia, and
Yemen give it the status of front-line state in the “war on terrorism”,
has been avidly courted by the administration of US President George W.
Bush, which has provided it with a steady supply of military aid.
“The United States and the United Kingdom should question the value
of allying with a government that is so callous in dealing with its own
citizens,” noted Zia-Zarifi.
While HRW said it strongly supports humanitarian assistance, it deplored
the fact that Washington has not used its leverage to at least ensure
that its military aid is allocated to non-lethal crowd control equipment
or that those responsible for abuses are brought to account. Most killings
of students have occurred during confrontations between demonstrators
and security forces.
Academic freedom, according to the report, has suffered as a result of
three major kinds of abuses: repeated, unjustified use of lethal force
by security forces putting down student protests; the repression of ETA;
and the stifling of independent thought through the government's control
of the administration and activities on university campuses.
The most violent examples of recent years include an incident last March
in which high school students from across Oromia Regional State protested
against economic conditions and education policy. In a succession of such
demonstrations, state police forces used live ammunition to disperse unarmed
students, resulting in at least five officially acknowledged deaths.
In the aftermath of the demonstrations, hundreds of people -- mostly students
and teachers -- were arrested and detained for an average of two months.
Some were tortured during their detention.
In April 2001, students at Addis Ababa University (AAU) in the capital
went on strike to demand academic freedom, including the right of the
student union to meet and publish a newspaper.
Paramilitary federal police special forces raided the campus in full force,
killing more than 40 demonstrators and arresting thousands more. While
the government, under popular pressure, admitted that the police should
not have been permitted onto the campus, it has released no information
about what, if anything, it had done to punish those responsible.
The students ended the strike one year later without having gained any
of their demands. Despite their sympathy for the students, the AAU's professors,
for whom the state does not provide tenure, have continued working, after
being reminded that they are government employees who can be fired for
dissent.
The government has also been “ruthless” in repressing labor
organizations, particularly the ETA, which it has tried to destroy during
the past decade, according to the report. Tactics have included arresting
many ETA leaders across the country and confiscating its property and
bank accounts. One ETA leader was assassinated in 1997.
The government has also imposed a system of evaluations known as “gimgema,”
which may be used to pressure academics and teachers to promote the ruling
party's ideology. Some of AAU's most distinguished professors resigned
last month to protest the new system.
The report stressed that the government's treatment of ETA has been similar
to that used against other independent institutions, including the Ethiopian
Human Rights Council. “Taken together, these actions create an environment
strongly hostile to independent thought,” it said.
In spite of this record, the international community has failed to hold
the government accountable, the report says. Ethiopia remains one of the
biggest aid beneficiaries in Africa, and some donors' assistance has been
aimed at promoting democratization and educational development.
But on the security front, donors tended to provide the aid without strings,
the report adds. What criticism was directed at the government for its
human rights record, has been largely muted since the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, an unnamed senior State
Department official told HRW that since then, so far as Washington is
concerned, human rights is “not a factor” in the bilateral relationship.
HRW noted the US Embassy's refusal to take a strong stand against the
2001 police shootings recounted in the report, despite their inclusion
in the State Department annual report for 2002.
By contrast, the European Union (EU) has shown a growing willingness to
criticize the government and has called for, among other things, an inquiry
and accountability for police shootings of demonstrators.
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BRIEFS
Bush moves to restore military ties with Indonesia
The administration of US President George W. Bush has moved a major step
closer toward normalizing military ties with the Indonesian military (TNI),
which it hopes will be a key ally in its ''war against terrorism'' in
Southeast Asia. The Senate voted 61-36 Thursday to defeat an amendment
that would have barred funding for enrolling Indonesians in Washington's
International Military Education and Training (IMET) program until it
cooperates fully in an investigation into the killing of two US teachers
in West Papua last summer.
The administration's eagerness to restore military aid and training to
Indonesia -- first restricted in 1991 after a well-publicized massacre
in East Timor, and then cut off entirely in 1999 when TNI-backed militias
ransacked the former Portuguese colony -- has made it a top foreign-policy
priority since the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and
the Pentagon. But there has been substantial opposition to renewing military
ties with the TNI, which is widely considered by international human rights
groups as one of the world's most abusive and corrupt national military
institutions. (IPS)
Australian troopdeployment ignores anti-war sentiment
With Thursday’s deployment of Australian troops for a war against
Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard is thumbing his nose at rising sentiment
by the majority of Australians who oppose the country’s involvement
in any military action that does not have UN backing.
Australia became the first country apart from the United States and Britain
to begin deploying troops to the Gulf, with the departure from Sydney
Harbor of the transport vessel HMAS Kanimbla. Protesters assembling outside
Sydney’s naval base heckled Howard as he arrived to bid farewell
to the ship. “Go yourself!” shouted the protesters as he passed
through the gates of the naval facility amid heavy police presence.
A Sydney Morning Herald poll last week found just six percent of Australians
supported involvement in a strike on Iraq without UN endorsement. Said
Labor opposition leader Simon Crean, “Howard should listen to the
Australian people, not George Bush.” (IPS)
Israeli police beat news photographers in Nablus
Israeli border police beat two Palestinian photographers for international
news agencies as they tried to take pictures of police driving with two
youths strapped to the front of their jeep.
Jaafar Ashtiyeh of Agence France-Presse and Nasser Ashtiyeh of the Associated
Press (AP) were punched by the policemen, one of whom threatened to shoot
them if the photos were published, said the two men, both from the same
family.
Last year, an AFP photographer in the southern West Bank city of Hebron,
Hossam Abu Alan, was held for six months in an Israeli jail and released
on October 23 without trial or explanation.
An Israeli military spokesman said the army would investigate the Nablus
incident. (AFP)
Greenpeace blocks military port in Iraq protest
International pressure group Greenpeace stepped up its campaign against
war with Iraq by blocking a major UK military port. On Jan. 27, Greenpeace’s
flagship, Rainbow Warrior, dropped anchor at Marchwood, Southampton, blocking
the entrance to the military supply port. As well as blockading the Hampshire
harbor, two Greenpeace protesters have climbed aboard a military supply
ship, according to a Greenpeace spokeswoman. In the past two weeks the
support arm of the Navy, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, has been dispatching
a fleet of ships loaded with tanks, helicopters and Royal Marines headed
to the Gulf. The Greenpeace spokeswoman said the aim of the action is
to disrupt the naval ships joining the military build-up in the Gulf.
“This peaceful action is part of a global campaign to prevent a war
that will kill hundreds of thousands of people and increase the chances
of weapons of mass destruction being used. We want to stop this relentless
rush towards a war which is basically placing a higher price on oil than
blood.” (Femail.co.uk)
Mexican farmers still resisting NAFTA
Industrialists in Mexico urged the government Jan. 20 to take a heavy-handed
approach to protests by small farmers opposed to the lifting of tariffs
in trade in agriculture with the United States and Canada. The farmers
have threatened new demonstrations and even a nationwide strike. Mexico's
small farmers are opposed to the second of three phases of liberalization
of trade in agriculture as outlined by the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). The country's industrialists defend the strict application of
NAFTA, which provides them with access to imported raw materials at lower
prices than those offered by local suppliers, while facilitating exports
of manufactured goods. At the same time, NAFTA has severely eroded the
possibility of a self sufficient existence for Mexico’s rural farmers,
forcing them into even more extreme poverty.
The protests have been spearheaded by members of the country's leading
peasant farmer organizations. The farmers' associations have threatened
to break off their talks with the administration of President Vicente
Fox, charging that the government is not willing to make needed revisions
to NAFTA.
In one of their most high-profile protests, farmers rode horses into parliament
late last year.
The farmers will paralyze the country and close the borders if the government
does not agree to renegotiate the terms of NAFTA by late January, said
the rural activists.
According to official figures, nearly all of Mexico's rural inhabitants
are living below the poverty line. (IPS, AGR
staff)
Women block Nigerian naval base
Women in the southern Nigerian town of Warri staged a protest Jan. 22,
demanding more government aid for the region. Girls and women aged from
10 to 70 blocked the river leading to a proposed naval base, preventing
gunboats from passing through.
Last year, a group of women invaded an oil installation in nearby Escravos.
Residents of the Niger Delta charge that they do not get any benefits
from the region’s oil wealth.
Oil from the Delta is Nigeria’s main export earner, but locals say
oil has only led to pollution, not jobs or even better infrastructure
for them.
After a futile appeal to the demonstrators to let them pass, the navy
were turned back to their base in Warri.
In a statement to the press, heads of the Beniboye community, including
the leader of the protesting women, Ebi Sabuobe, said they had taken the
action in protest at the Nigerian Government’s “failure to provide
them with basic amenities.” Instead, they charged, the government
was intent on setting up a naval base to police the oil installations
in the area.
The commanding officer of the Warri Naval Base, Captain Titus Awoyemi,
said in a statement that the actions of the community had stalled the
establishment of the base within the Forcados estuary.
(BBC)
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