World Social Forum: Bush, Coke, and
Windows are out

Compiled by Seán Marquis

Jan. 21 (AGR)— The anti-corporate globalization movement held an annual strategy meeting Jan. 16-21 with calls for action against US companies and appeals to find a new and more militant means of protest.

An estimated 100,000 activists crammed into an exhibition grounds off a Mumbai highway in India, with dozens of colorful demonstrations pushing their way over a pavement littered with fliers for causes from all continents.

Multinational brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi were banned and the conference’s computers ran on Linux, a free operating system that is an alternative to Microsoft Windows. The organizers also chose not to accept money for the event from the US-based Ford Foundation, but took donations from Oxfam.

The most common cause at the World Social Forum (WSF), however, was opposition to US President George W. Bush, whose portrait was depicted across the wooded venue in assorted states of defacement.

Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist and political essayist, launched the forum with a call for activists to select two US companies associated with the Iraq war and launch a worldwide campaign to shut them down.

The WSF is designed as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum of business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

At the WSF, activists ranging from pacifist South Korean students to Indian street vendors handed out leaflets, marched to drumbeats and staged impromptu theater to press their causes.

Jose Bové, a French farmers’ leader, urged activists to find alternatives to the World Trade Organization, which he charged was dictating rules for agriculture even at the village level.

Jeremy Corbyn, a British member of parliament, used the forum to urge a common front against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

WSF activists are quite determined to link George W. Bush and the date, Mar. 20 — it was on this day last year that the Bush administration led a military invasion of Iraq.

Speaker after speaker in the seminars on war, imperialism and occupation said that Mar. 20 is an anniversary that cannot be ignored.

Gulbadan Azam, a 42-year-old female activist from Pakistan, stood on the sidelines of the many marches at the WSF carrying a large poster with a six-word message printed in bold text: “When Bush Comes to Shove - Resist!”

“The planned demonstrations on March 20 are very important for peace. We have to challenge the US agenda in as many ways, through dance, art and powerful protests,’’ said Azam.

The Mar. 20 protests promise to be among the largest mobilizations of public groups and citizens since the February 2003 protests by anti-war campaigners that lasted over two days and were held in over 600 cities and towns around the world and turned out 10-15 million people.

“We need to go beyond our efforts last year to oppose the imperial designs of George Bush,’” said Trevor Ngwane of the South African Anti-privatization Forum.

“Trade unions in arms producing companies have to increase their pressure, too, by refusing to help in the war effort,” Ngwane continued.

“You cannot let this first anniversary of the war go unmarked,” said Joseph Gerson, founder of the Union for Justice and Peace, a US anti-war group.

In a run-up to the WSF the People’s World Water Forum (PWWF) launched a global campaign against multinationals Coca Cola and Suez Degremont.

Launching the movement in the Indian capital New Delhi, Vandana Shiva, of the NGO Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, said, “These two companies are the prime exploiters of global water resources. Suez leads in privatization of water in most countries and Coca Cola leads in having conflicts with local people over groundwater mining.”

NGOs have decided to give a push to campaigns against corporate groundwater extraction which have devastated local ecology, indigenous communities and economies.

The Forum also pledged support to local people and communities in their battle for water resources. The communities will be given support on issues like relocation of people due to river linking, privatization of water, groundwater mining by multinational companies, and cutting off water supply to the poor.

At the same time, over 2,000 leftists held the Mumbai Resistance (MR), an alternative to the WSF, which they said had failed to stop the United States from going to war to occupy Iraq.

The critics of the WSF stress that the global conference does not seek to address fundamental problems, but is only looking at “re-arranging” strategies.

The MR was formed in reaction to the programs of WSF, which, MR constituents felt, sought to sanitize globalization — a free market philosophy, mainly led by the world’s riches nations.

“The WSF people simply shout slogans when out of power and then implement pro-globalization policies when in power,” says GN Saibaba, organizer of the rival event. Saibaba claims that the WSF has been turned into a “talking” shop that has blunted its aims. “The WSF are not serious about changing the world. They do not accept the need for armed struggle and we do.”

Outside the gates

On the highway divider live some one hundred or so families in their makeshift shelters thatched with polyethylene and rags. This squatter settlement happens to be right in the middle of the highway, next to the World Social Forum venue where activists have been meeting to protest the world and social economic order and look for alternative ways of eradicating poverty.

From their settlement perched on the divider, the families can see in close proximity both the WSF and its crowds as they flow in and out of the various gates.

“What would I know about that [the WSF]? We see them coming and going — that’s all,’’ said Anjela, a village resident.

Yaum Viram, an elderly man, says they are all from the southern Indian city of Chennai. “During the dry season we all come to this city looking for work. When monsoon starts we go back to our village to work the lands. We grow rice and stuff that see us through for about six months.’’

Men, women, and children of a family together dig earth at various construction sites, only to earn less than a hundred rupees (2.27 US dollars) at the end of the day. He is equally ignorant of the grand affair happening over at the WSF: “I have no idea — some program is going on there. In the evening we can hear music and drums. We cannot go there because they ask for passes to let you in.’’

“We tried to get in. The gatemen chased us away, even beat us with sticks,’’ said Vingrit, Raju, and Arulya, children in the mid-road settlement.

Ironically however, Vikram and his neighbors worked for clearing and preparing the WSF grounds prior to the gala week.

Jageshwari, the next district, is dotted with numerous slums and dilapidated one-room houses accommodating informal sector workers and service providers.

“[I] never heard of these programs [the WSF] that you talk about. If I could read, perhaps I would have read something somewhere. Leaders are always delivering long speeches but does that change the poor’s lot?’’ said Ganga Jain, a Jageshwari resident. “I have my own worries. They are going to build a road right through where I live. Where shall we go then?’’

Sources: Agence France Presse, Guardian (UK), IPS, OneWorld.net

Wal-Mart attacked for ‘locking in’
overnight workers

By Rupert Cornwell

Jan. 19-- Wal-Mart, believed to be the world’s largest retailer, is under fire for reportedly locking in overnight workers at many of its stores, sometimes to the detriment of their own safety.

The New York Times reported yesterday a number of cases in which employees were allegedly prevented from leaving a store when they were injured, unwell, or as in one case in Florida, when a hurricane struck the area.

Michael Rodriguez, who works at a Wal-Mart store in Texas and waited an hour for colleagues to free him from beneath fallen machinery as they searched for a key, said: “It isn’t right. You could have been bleeding to death and they’ll have you locked in.”

Wal-Mart officials said a lock-in policy operated in some stores and had done so for up to 15 years. But they said the stores were either in high crime areas or at risk of “shrinkage,” a euphemism for theft by employees.

Nonetheless the latest charges can only tarnish Wal-Mart’s image and strengthen its reputation as a company that combines sophisticated 21st-century retailing techniques with 19th-century-style treatment of its employees.

With 2002 sales of $245 billion, and employing more than 1.2 million people, Wal-Mart has grown from a small shop in Bentonville, northern Arkansas, to a global retail empire, with over 4,500 outlets.

These days, however, it is increasingly seen less as an American corporate legend and more as a pace-setter for a heartless new version of American capitalism. In the past few years the group has been embroiled in controversies ranging from complaints about poor pay and skimpy health care coverage for junior employees to allegations that it does not pay low-level workers for extra hours in lieu of time off.

Federal investigators have accused managers at some Wal-Mart stores of employing illegal immigrants in their maintenance and cleaning crews. Hundreds of illegal immigrants were arrested in raids on 60 outlets across the country. In California, a judge is deciding whether to allow a class-action suit for alleged discrimination by Wal-Mart against women.

Organised labour has long been upset by the group’s resistance to the unionisation of its workforce, spurred, critics say, by Wal-Mart’s determination to keep the cost of wages and benefits as low as possible.

The relentless rise of Wal-Mart and other large retailers is often held responsible for the decline and extinction of the small “mom and pop” store and the demise of traditional high streets across small town America.

The company either denies most of the charges or blames the breaches of regulation on “rogue” managers. It also believes that some of the complaints are born out of envy at Wal-Wart’s success.

On the specific case of “lock-ins”, a spokesman said that the employees who had urgently needed to leave a store could have used an emergency fire door.

But Rodriguez and other workers said they were told that these doors could only be opened in case of fire. Use for any other reason could lead to an employee being reprimanded or dismissed.

Source : Independent (UK)

US military ‘brutalized’ journalists
News agency demands inquiry after American forces in Iraq
allegedly treated camera crew as enemy personnel

By Luke Harding

Jan. 13 -- The international news agency Reuters has made a formal complaint to the Pentagon following the “wrongful” arrest and apparent “brutalization” of three of its staff this month by US troops in Iraq.

The complaint followed an incident in the town of Falluja when American soldiers fired at two Iraqi cameramen and a driver from the agency while they were filming the scene of a helicopter crash.

The US military initially claimed that the Reuters journalists were “enemy personnel” who had opened fire on US troops and refused to release them for 72 hours.

Although Reuters has not commented publicly, it is understood that the journalists were “brutalized and intimidated” by US soldiers, who put bags over their heads, told them they would be sent to Guantanamo Bay, and whispered: “Let’s have sex.”

At one point during the interrogation, according to the family of one of the staff members, a US soldier shoved a shoe into the mouth of one of the Iraqis.

The US troops, from the 82nd Airborne Division, based in Falluja, also made the blindfolded journalists stand for hours with their arms raised and their palms pressed against the cell wall.

“They were brutalized, terrified, and humiliated for three days,” one source said. “It was pretty grim stuff. There was mental and physical abuse.”

He added: “It makes you wonder what happens to ordinary Iraqis.”

The US military has so far refused to apologize and has bluntly told Reuters to “drop” its complaint. Major General Charles Swannack, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, claimed that two US soldiers had provided sworn evidence that they had come under fire. He admitted, however, that soldiers sometimes had to make “snap judgments.”

“More often than not they are right,” he said.

On Jan. 2 Reuters’ Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Falluja stringer Ahmed Mohammed Hussein al-Badrani and driver Sattar Jabar al-Badrani turned up at the crash site where a US Kiowa Warrior helicopter had just been shot down, killing one soldier.

The journalists were all wearing bulletproof jackets clearly marked “press.” They drove off after US soldiers who were securing the scene opened fire on their Mercedes, but were arrested shortly afterwards.

The soldiers also detained a fourth Iraqi, working for the American network NBC. No weapons were found, the US military admitted.

Last night the nephew of veteran Reuters driver and latterly cameraman Ureibi said that US troops had forced his uncle to strip naked and had ordered him to put his shoe in his mouth.

“He protested that he was a journalist but they stuck a shoe in his mouth anyway. They also hurt his leg. One of the soldiers told him: ‘If you don’t shut up we’ll fuck you.’”

He added: “His treatment was very shameful. He’s very sad. He has also had hospital treatment because of his leg.”

Last August a US soldier shot dead another Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana, after mistaking his camera for a rocket launcher while he filmed outside a Baghdad prison.

An internal US investigation later cleared him of wrongdoing. During the war last April another of the agency’s cameramen, Ukrainian Taras Protswuk, was killed after a US tank fired a shell directly into his room in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, from where he had been filming.

Last night Simon Walker, a spokesman at Reuters head office in London, confirmed that the agency had made a formal complaint to the Pentagon last Friday.

He said: “We have also complained to the US military. We have complained about the detention [of our staff] and their treatment in detention. We hope it will be dealt with expeditiously.”

A spokeswoman for the US military’s coalition press and information center in Baghdad hung up when the Guardian asked her to comment.

The top US military spokesman in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, later admitted that they had received a formal complaint and that there was an on-going investigation into the incident.

Journalists based in Baghdad have expressed concern that the US military is likely to treat other media employees in Iraq as targets.

Source: Guardian (UK)