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Escalating unrest in Bolivia has government
cornered
By Alejandro Campos
La Paz, Bolivia, Oct. 2 (IPS)— Protests began three
weeks ago in Bolivia against the sale of natural gas to markets in North
America, and have expanded since to include a broad range of new demands.
President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada is running out of options
for dealing with the unrest.
In the first two weeks, the protest method of choice was to set up roadblocks
on main highways, and there were violent clashes in the western high
plateau region, but the third week has seen conflict shift to the main
Bolivian cities, where there are daily marches and confrontations between
demonstrators and police.
La Paz has turned into the biggest scenario of discontent, with public
schools closing their doors, street markets operating sporadically,
constant threats of roadblocks on routes connecting the capital with
the rest of the country, and street protests that throw the city center
into traffic chaos.
Health workers began a 48-hour strike Thursday, while work stoppages
continue in the Yungas region, which normally supplies the food markets
in La Paz, and in the neighboring city of El Alto, where the international
airport is located.
Each demonstration seems to have its own set of demands, but the common
denominator is rejection of the government’s plan to export natural
gas via a Chilean port.
And there is growing opposition to any foreign sales of the fuel, period.
Bolivia, an impoverished nation of 8.1 million people, is second in
South America as far as natural gas reserves, after Venezuela. It has
enough to supply domestic demand for the next 100 years, and to meet
commitments to export to Mexico and the US state of California.
But the opposition’s strategy has overwhelmingly swayed public
opinion against exports.
The strategy has involved the dissemination of rumors and the feeding
of historic animosity against Chile, which in 1879 invaded and seized
the territory that Bolivia had on the Pacific coast. Bolivia thus became
a landlocked country, and recovering an outlet to the Pacific Ocean
has been a foreign policy issue ever since.
This has made the conflict largely unmanageable for the government,
which also appears to lack a strategy to confront it.
Several labor union and political leaders have expressed concern that
the deepening of social unrest could reach the point that it seriously
undermines Bolivia’s democratic system.
Peasant farmer and indigenous leader Felipe rallied social groups in
Bolivia today, who are preparing a mobilization that is to begin Monday,
potentially involving the closure of the Chapare highway, the main route
connecting the country’s eastern and western regions.
Predicting an escalation of tensions between demonstrators and security
forces, leaders in Santa Cruz, the country’s most prosperous city,
have issued a proposal that seeks development measures instead of roadblocks.
The initiative is the result of the discontent in the eastern region
arising from the ongoing social conflicts of the high plateau region,
which are distant geographically, but end up hurting the east’s
ability to market its rich agricultural production.
Sánchez de Lozada said Monday that his government is entering
a new phase, in which he will adopt as an agenda the series of commitments
promoted by the Catholic Church, in consultation with all political
parties, though Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) decided
at the last minute not to sign on to the document.
The president is confident that social tensions can be defused through
compliance with those commitments, which include an information campaign
about Bolivia’s natural gas exports, and the possibility of a subsequent
citizen consultation, or referendum, on what direction the country should
take.
Wednesday night, Sánchez de Lozada ordered 13 of his ministers
to conduct dialogues with civil society organizations before the end
of this year, covering economic reactivation, oil and natural gas, land
issues, coca policies, citizen security, corruption and constitutional
reform.
“This is our emergency plan. We want actions, not words. I hope
this produces the concrete results that the people are demanding. Instead
of blockades, we will enter into dialogue and seek solutions among all
Bolivians,” he told a press conference.
It is apparently the government’s final effort to quell tensions
through dialogue, and if it fails, the government does not rule out
the possibility of a state of siege, limiting citizen rights in the
name of preserving Bolivian institutions.
Political leader Manfred Reyes Villa, an adviser to the president, said
a state of siege is an instrument that the government always has on
hand, though he said, for now, he sees no reason that the government
would need to utilize it.
One of the factors that could prevent Sánchez de Lozada from
imposing the measure in the short term is the Ibero-American Summit,
to take place Nov. 14-15 in Santa Cruz, with the attendance of heads
of state and government from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, as well
as United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In circles close to the government, the word is that Sánchez
de Lozada fears media coverage of the Summit would highlight images
underscoring the country’s situation of unrest.
This week, the preparatory meeting of agriculture ministers from the
Ibero-American countries held in Tarija, in southern Bolivia, saw only
one of the 14 participants who had confirmed attendance.
Schwarzenegger wins California
By Andrew Gumbel
Los Angeles, California, Oct. 9-- In a political triumph
worthy of one of his own testosterone-packed action movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger
trounced his opponents in the race for the California Governor’s
office yesterday. He will take over leadership of the richest, most
populous US state.
After an unpredictable campaign lasting just nine weeks, he breathed
life into the campaign to recall California’s unpopular incumbent
Governor, Gray Davis, 11 months after he was re-elected to a second
four-year term.
Davis, a Democrat, was rejected by a margin of 54.6 per cent to 45.4.
Schwarzenegger, running on a Republican ticket, then soared to victory
in the second part of the ballot to determine a successor.
He won almost the same number of votes as Davis in the first round -
45.4 per cent - compared with 33.9 per cent for his nearest rival, Cruz
Bustamante.
Schwarzenegger said in a victory speech delivered less than three hours
after the polls closed: “I will not fail you, I will not disappoint
you, I will not let you down.” The extraordinary election to recall
a sitting Governor - the first in California’s history and only
the second recall in the United States - was the result of a big push
by the Republican Party to reclaim the initiative in a Democrat-dominated
state.
It was also a symptom of deep public disquiet at a record state budget
deficit, which has threatened deep cuts in schools, public health, and
other services. The uncharismatic Davis argued that many of the problems
were out of his hands - the result of recession and massive deficit
spending by the Bush administration. But the sheer star power of Schwarzenegger
blew his arguments away.
He will nevertheless inherit a nightmare budget scenario, with a multibillion
dollar deficit which could require him to raise taxes, although he has
promised not to. He must also grapple with a deeply divided state legislature,
and a political culture suspicious of his inexperience.
Although a political novice, Schwarzenegger used many of the techniques
developed as a body-building champion and Hollywood box-office phenomenon
to craft his victory: supreme confidence, charm, and a taste for unnerving
his opponents through psychological warfare.
He played on his movie persona to demand a “total recall”
and to tell Californians to “terminate Gray Davis before he terminates
them”.
But his campaign was short on specifics and was almost derailed in the
final week by allegations of groping and other unwanted sexual advances.
In the end, however, the voters seemed unperturbed, dismissing the negative
reports as politically motivated smears.
Source: Independent (UK)
Arnold unplugged - It’s hasta
la vista to $9 billion if the governator is selected
Analysis by Greg Palast
Oct. 4— It’s not what Arnold Schwarzenegger
did to the girls a decade back that should raise an eyebrow. According
to a series of memoranda our office obtained today, it’s his dalliance
with the boys in a hotel room just two years ago that’s the real
scandal.
The wannabe governor has yet to deny that on May 17, 2001, at the Peninsula
Hotel in Los Angeles, he had consensual political intercourse with Enron
chieftain Kenneth Lay. Also frolicking with Arnold and Ken was convicted
stock swindler Mike Milken.
Now, thirty-four pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through
this reporter’s fax machine tell all about the tryst between Maria’s
husband and the corporate con men. It turns out that Schwarzenegger
knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage
a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging
California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.
Here’s the story Arnold doesn’t want you to hear. The biggest
single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit
filed last year under California’s unique Civil Code provision
17200, the “Unfair Business Practices Act.” This litigation,
heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies
return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas
customers.
It takes real cojones to bring such a suit. Who’s the plaintiff
taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant
leading candidate against Schwarzenegger.
Now follow the action. One month after Cruz brings suit, Enron’s
Lay calls an emergency secret meeting in L.A. of his political buck-buddies,
including Arnold. Their plan, to undercut Davis (according to Enron
memos) and “solve” the energy crisis — that is, make
the Bustamante legal threat go away.
How can that be done? Follow the trail with me.
While Bustamante’s kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration
is simultaneously demanding that George Bush’s energy regulators
order the $9 billion refund. Don’t hold your breath: Bush’s
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by
… Ken Lay.
But Bush’s boys on the commission have a problem. The evidence
against the electricity barons is rock solid: fraudulent reporting of
sales transactions, megawatt “laundering,” fake power delivery
scheduling and straight out conspiracy (including meetings in hotel
rooms).
So the Bush commissioners cook up a terrific scheme: charge the companies
with conspiracy but offer them, behind closed doors, deals in which
they have to pay only two cents on each dollar they filched.
Problem: the slap-on-the-wrist refunds won’t sail if the Governor
of California won’t play along. Solution: Re-call the Governor.
New Problem: the guy most likely to replace Davis is not Mr. Musclehead,
but Cruz Bustamante, even a bigger threat to the power companies than
Davis. Solution: smear Cruz because — heaven forbid! — he
took donations from Injuns (instead of Ken Lay).
The pay-off? Once Arnold is Governor, he blesses the sweetheart settlements
with the power companies. When that happens, Bustamante’s court
cases are probably lost. There aren’t many judges who will let
a case go to trial to protect a state if that a governor has already
allowed the matter to be “settled” by a regulatory agency.
So think about this. The state of California is in the hole by $8 billion
for the coming year. That’s chump change next to the $8 TRILLION
in deficits and surplus losses planned and incurred by George Bush.
Nevertheless, the $8 billion deficit is the hanging rope California’s
right wing is using to lynch Governor Davis.
Yet only Davis and Bustamante are taking direct action to get back the
$9 billion that was vacuumed out of the state by Enron, Reliant, Dynegy,
Williams Company and the other Texas bandits who squeezed the state
by the bulbs.
But if Arnold is selected, it’s ‘hasta la vista’ to the
$9 billion. When the electricity emperors whistle, Arnold comes —
to the Peninsula Hotel or the Governor’s mansion. The he-man turns
pussycat and curls up in their lap.
I asked Mr. Muscle’s PR people to comment on the new Enron memos
— and his strange silence on Bustamante’s suit or Davis’
petition. But Arnold was too busy shaving off his Hitlerian mustache
to respond.
The Enron memos were discovered by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer
Rights, Los Angeles, www.ConsumerWatchdog.org
Source: www.CommonDreams.org
Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides carry
message of workers’ rights
By Liz Allen
Oct. 7, (AGR)-- Nearly 900 workers from across the country
left from nine different US cities on September 20 to participate in
the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, organized by a coalition of labor
organizations such as the AFL-CIO, other unions, and rights organizations.
The buses made stops throughout the country and convened in Flushing
Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York on October 4th for a mass rally
that included a speech by Rep. John Lewis, who was on the original freedom
rides and a performance by Wyclef Jean. Prior to the rally, riders stopped
in Washington, DC on Oct .1st and 2nd to meet with congressional representatives
to discuss their agenda for legalization and citizenship for all US
workers, the right to reunite families separated due to family members
having to come to the United States for asylum and work, protection
of workers rights regardless of legal status and protection of all people’s
civil rights and liberties. Riders also held a rally in New Jersey on
Oct. 3rd at Liberty State Park, with the statue of liberty in the background.
The Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides were inspired by the Freedom Rides
of the civil rights movement that took place in 1961 to challenge segrewas
officially desegregated with the decision in the 1961 Supreme Court
case Boynton v. Virginia. The ’61 Freedom Rides, organized by the
Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), were set to travel from Washington
DC to New Orleans. The final destination location being at the ocean
was analogous to the salt march of Gandhi, whose pacifist philosophy
was influential to many in the movement. When the buses stopped in towns
throughout the South the black riders sitting in the front and white
riders sitting in the back would each use restrooms rooms and waiting
rooms designated for those of another race.
“We felt that we could then count on the racists of the South to
create a crisis, so that the federal government would then be compelled
to enforce the law,” explained James Farmer, in the book Voices
of Freedom. Farmer was one of CORE’s founders and directors. The
rides were stalled after riders were beaten and firebombed in Alabama.
The rides were resumed with new volunteers from, Nashville, Tennessee.
They set back out for Alabama, where the riders, reporters and Robert
Kennedy’s administrative assistant, John Seigenthaler, were all
attacked in Montgomery by an angry mob awaiting the arrival of the bus,
And later at a rally in Ralph Abernathy’s church 1,500 people were
trapped inside by a mob.
The Kennedy administration, feeling international embarrassment becuase
of the rides, was forced to send in U.S. Marshals to protect those at
the rally. Now with federal government intervention, the rides immediately
pushed on to Jackson, Mississippi, despite Attorney General Kennedy’s
call for a cooling off period, and upon arrival, riders were arrested
on breach of peace charges and served approximately forty days in various
state penitentiaries on misdemeanor charges. The rides continued and
328 were arrested in Jackson by the end of that summer. In late September
of that year, the ICC issued regulations that permitted the federal
government to enforce the Supreme Court ruling of desegregation.
Instead of meeting violent mobs at nearly every stop, the Immigrant
Workers Freedom Rides the riders, of various nationalities and allies,
were often met with cheers and food and gathered to talk to communities
about the need for workers rights and to dispel myths like immigrants
do not pay taxes, they are taking American jobs, they are draining social
resources, the US is being overrun by immigrants and people do not need
to come here to work. In reality, immigrants contribute $10 billion
a year in net income to the US economy, according to a 1997 study by
the National Academy of Sciences and according to the IRS, undocumented
immigrant workers contributed an estimated more than 300 million dollars
in federal taxes alone. Most of the money is never returned to the workers.
Also, according to Learning from the 90’s, a report by the Fiscal
Policy Institute, there is no correlation between new immigrants and
a change in the unemployment rate, the median family income or the poverty
rate. Many public aid programs are restricted against non-citizens,
plus the National Academy of Sciences has estimated that the average
immigrant contributes 1,800 more in taxes each year than she or he receives
in services. People are often forced to come to the US to work, due
to situations such as danger in their own countries and dramatic wage
decreases that have resulted from free trade deals such as NAFTA.
Still, riders were met with some opposition. According to rider Mike
Escorcita, from Huntington Beach, California whose local sponsored his
trip, one of the buses passing through El Paso, TX was stopped and riders
questioned and detained. However prior to the trip, like the Freedom
Rides of ’61, riders had received training including legal training.
Riders on the current trip carry no other ID aside from the group identification
cards, along with instructions and an explanation that they will not
speak to police or other types without their lawyer.
The bus Escorcita was on, which left from Los Angeles, passed through
Little Rock Arkansas, where people who participated in the demonstrations
in the 60’swere present. “Of course we had some of the dummies
on the other side, the KKK, chanting but we didn’t pay attention
to them, we’re doing it for everybody,” said Escorcita. There
were also reports of counter demonstrations by racist organizations
in Chicago, New Jersey, and Immokalee, Florida.
The rides made four stops in North Carolina, more than any other state.
Here organizers received threatening emails from a white supremacist
group. Also permits for counterdemonstrations were reportedly applied
for and denied in Marion and Morganton, N.C.
On September 29, two buses of Freedom Riders, who had just visited the
historic civil rights Highlander School in Tennessee, stopped in Marion
at 1:30 pm to join a commemoration held at the now closed Marion Manufacturing
Plant where, in 1929, during a shift change, 20 strikers were injured
and six, ranging in age from 18 – 65, were shot (four of whom were
shot in the back) and killed by the sheriff and his deputies. The commemoration
held was the first ever held at the site. Novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote
a book about the strike entitled Cheap and Contented Labor, taken from
a phrase used to try and attract industry to the state. During the event,
conducted in both Spanish and English, stories were told of the strength
of unions by local people and riders who are union members. The story
of the murdered strikers was told and their names were solemnly read.
A prayer that was read at the funeral of the strikers wasrecited. The
prayer asked, “O God, we know we are not in high society, but we
know Jesus Christ loves us. The poor people have their rights too. For
the work we do in this world, is this what we get if we demand our rights?”
The minister who originally said the prayer had to be brought in from
out of town, because the salaries of the local ministers were all partially
paid for by the factories and they would not conduct the funerals.
Local chief of police, whose grandfather, Dan Elliot, was a leader in
the strike, stopped traffic as a wreath and ribbons like those laid
on the caskets of the six workers that symbolized they were members
of The United Textile Workers Union, were tied to the chain-link, barbwire-topped
fence that surrounds the mill. Fiddle music was played as the group
stood on the side of street across from the mill and cars began to pass
again.
Later, the bus traveled 20 minutes east to Morganton, were they gathered
at St. Charles’ Catholic Church, a central place for organizing
the local Case Farm workers strike that involved many undocumented workers
in NC who went on a wildcat strike after their demands had failed to
be met, their story is described in the book The Maya of Morganton.
The riders and participants had dinner and a press conference and then
marched on the sidewalk, escorted by police, approximately a mile and
a half through an predominately affluent neighborhood to the old Burke
County Courthouse chanting “Si, se puede” and “What do
we want? Workers Rights! When do we want them? Now!”
At the courthouse, a gospel choir sung and a dance troupe called “Mexico
2003” preformed and speakers talked about the importance of immigrant
and workers rights for all people.
Local student activist Francisco Tomas spoke about his experience moving
here from Mexico in the sixth grade, graduating from Christ School as
member of the National Honor’s Society and then being denied entrance
into college because he didn’t have papers. He reminded the crowd
that “Education is the key to a better future…Everything immigrants
have achieved we haven’t stolen, we have worked for by the sweat
of our brow.”
Martin Luther King’s dream was an emphasized subject throughout
as well as the fact that the United States is built on and supported
by immigrant labor, either from those who moved to the US voluntarily
or involuntarily like the African slaves. Also North Carolina’s
lack of unions and hostility towards labor issues was a prevalent topic.
Laura Gordon, co-organizer and president of the WNC Central Labor Council
said, “Coming together to work on the freedom ride brought leaders
from organized labor, the Latino community and the African-American
community together for the first time – something we all feel good
about and want to continue.” Another co-sponsor of the event is
the Western NC Worker’s Center, who will be holding a workshop
on workers rights in Hendersonville on October 11.
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