Iraq jolted by upsurge in violence

Compiled by Greg White

June 16 (AGR)— The past week saw a barrage of attacks throughout Iraq, including several car bombings and assassinations. Key oil pipelines were bombed as well, drastically disrupting oil production.

As the June 30 purported handover approaches, the level and intensity of attacks steadily increased. Insurgents targeted Iraqi government ministers and continued their attacks on US forces. Despite the increase in violence, US casualties during the past week were relatively low.

Car bombings killed at least 33 Iraqis in 4 separate incidents.

On Monday, June 14, at least 11 people were killed in a huge car bombing in the center of Baghdad. Five foreign contractors were known to be among the dead. Dozens of people were injured in the blast, which happened in the early morning and destroyed a building in Tahrir Square. Local people rushed to the scene, pulling wounded victims from the wreckage of the vehicles and bundling them into their own cars to take them to hospital.

On June 13 a suicide car bomber killed at least seven Iraqis outside a US base in Baghdad. Thirteen Iraqis were injured in the blast, which occurred about 9:15am after police flagged down a vehicle traveling on the wrong side of the road. The driver detonated the explosives as police approached.

A US military spokesperson said about 12 Iraqis had died in the blast and 13 had been wounded but hospital sources put the death toll at seven. Officials said four Iraqi policemen were among the dead, but there were no American casualties.

Two separate bombings killed 15 Iraqis and wounded more than 110 in Mosul and Baquba on June 8.

The US military said 10 civilians died when a car bomb blew up outside the mayor’s office in Mosul. More than 100 were injured in the huge blast, which set nine cars ablaze and damaged surrounding buildings.

The Mosul attack appeared to be aimed at the local mayor, Major General

Sammi al-Haj Issa, who is also head of the local province’s security commission. Military sources said witnesses had seen three suicide bombers in an orange and white taxi.

Earlier that day, in the northeastern town of Baquba, a car bomb exploded during morning rush hour outside a US base. 5 civilians were killed and 12 injured.

The explosion occurred 10 yards from the main gate of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division base in Baquba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Kamal al-Jarah, 63, the Education Ministry official in charge of contacts with foreign governments and the United Nations, was fatally shot on June 13 outside his home in the Baghdad’s Ghazaliya district.

On June 12, gunmen assassinated an Iraqi deputy foreign minister, shooting him as he drove to work through the center of Baghdad. Bassam Salih Qubba, Iraq’s senior career diplomat, was sitting in the back seat of a car being driven to the Foreign Ministry. Near the al-Assaf mosque in Azamiyah, a Sunni Muslim district notoriously hostile to the occupation, gunmen drove up behind him and opened fire.

Qubba had returned from a foreign trip the previous day, suggesting that the gunmen were awaiting his return or had been tipped off from inside the government. The killing is a sign that the resistance is increasingly well-organized in Baghdad.

Other Iraqi civilian and military officials were targeted as well. On June 15, the security chief for the oil industry in northern Iraq and the commander of the Iraqi police department in Sadat Al Henda were assassinated. The same day, two employees of the US-funded Iraqi television network were found dead near the Syrian border.

Rather than going after top government figures who are well protected, the insurgents appear to be targeting middle and upper level officials who lack adequate security.

On the night of June 9, gunfire rang out in Najaf for the first time since an agreement two weeks ago to end weeks of bloody fighting between American soldiers and militiamen loyal to the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Residents said gunmen attacked a police station near the city’s Revolution of 1920 Square, and it appeared American troops were not involved.

The militiamen set prisoners free and allowed looters to plunder the building, witnesses and Iraqi security officials said. They eventually withdrew from the police station after several hours, but they returned throughout the day as the looting went on.

Qais al-Khazali, a spokesman for Sadr, said the incident started when the police tried to raid a building housing an Islamic organization that was guarded by members of the militia. At least six people were killed and 29 injured in the fighting.

Each side accused the other of shooting first and breaking the cease-fire, which was announced on June 4 by Adnan Zurfi, the governor of Najaf. It was unclear whether the gunmen were acting on the orders of senior commanders in Sadr’s militia, known as the Mahdi Army, or had acted independently.

Muqtada al-Sadr — whose militia has fought US forces since March — has now issued conditional support for the interim Iraqi government, which he earlier rejected as a US puppet. He has also urged his supporters to stop attacking Iraqi security forces.

Insurgents attacked key oil pipelines in northern Iraq and in the southern city of Basra.

On June 15 two separate explosions in the southern port city of Basra drastically disrupted oil production. The attacks effectively stopped the flow of crude oil through Iraq’s main export route — reducing it by as much as two-thirds.

Local shipping agents said deliveries to Basra were cut off. One said the targeted line had been “seriously damaged.” A second trunk line, though intact, was also closed, apparently for security checks.

Saboteurs blew up a key northern oil pipeline near Beiji on June 9.

The attack on the pipeline — which carries fuel to the Beiji power station, one of Iraq’s largest — forced a 10 percent cutback in the country’s 4,000-megawatt production, Assem Jihad, an Oil Ministry spokesman said.

Ninety percent of Iraqi government revenues come from oil, and the flow of funds is essential to pay for the country’s reconstruction. According to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, pipeline sabotage has cost the country more than $200 million in lost revenues over the past seven months.

Recently crude exports have been running at around 1.7 million barrels of oil a day — that figure has now been cut by as much as two-thirds. It is estimated that repairs to the pipelines will take up to 10 days and cost over $60 million a day unless deliveries are resumed.

More than a year after the occupation began, power cuts are common nationwide and have steadily increased due to recent attacks on the power infrastructure. Demand is rising with the approach of summer, with temperatures already topping 100 degrees.

As President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair were speaking at the G-8 Summit about a new beginning for Iraq, the supply of electricity in the country fell from 12 hours a day to six hours.

Since US forces moved into Baghdad and overthrew President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the 138,000 American soldiers stationed here have lost their status as liberators in the eyes of most Iraqis. Polling by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has chronicled a steady souring of opinion. The most recent surveys showed about 80 percent of Iraqis with an unfavorable opinion of US troops.

Public opinion of the occupation forces is likely to further erode after President Bush’s announcement June 15 that the US will not hand over former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to be tried in Baghdad. The president claimed that until adequate security is in place to ensure he does not escape trial, the former Iraqi leader will remain in US custody.

Sources: Al Jazeera, Associated Press, BBC, CNN, Guardian, Independent (UK), Washington Post

Coke profits from child labor in El Salvador

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, June 10— Coca-Cola and other large businesses are indirectly benefiting from the use of child labor in sugarcane fields in El Salvador, according to a new report released here Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which is calling on the company to take more responsibility to ensure that such abuses are halted.

From 5,000 to 30,000 Salvadoran children, some as young as eight years old, are working in El Salvador’s sugarcane plantations where injuries, particularly severe cuts, are common, according to the report, “Turning a Blind Eye: Hazardous Labor in El Salvador’s Sugarcane Cultivation.”

Under Salvadoran law, 18 is the minimum age for dangerous work and 14 for most other kinds. But the relevant provisions generally go unenforced in part because the children are hired as “helpers,” rather than employees that would entitle them to certain protections.

Not only is the law circumvented in this way, but children who are injured in the fields often must pay for their own medical treatment despite another provision in the labor code that makes employers responsible for medical expenses for injuries incurred on the job.

“Child labor is rampant on El Salvador’s sugarcane plantations,” said Michael Bochenek of HRW’s Children’s Rights division. “Companies that buy or use Salvadoran sugar should realize that fact and take responsibility for doing something about it.”

The 139-page report, which was based on interviews with 32 children and youths between the ages of 12 and 22, as well as with parents, teachers, activists, academics, lawyers, government officials, and representatives of the Salvadoran Sugar Association, during a trip to El Salvador last year, is the eleventh in a series on child labor issues and the fourth that concerns child labor in El Salvador.

Cutting sugar cane is back-breaking and hazardous work for a variety of reasons. The most common tools are machetes and similar sharp devices, both the monotony of the work and the fact that it is usually conducted under direct sunlight make for frequent accidents, even among experienced workers.

In addition, because cane is often burned before it is cut to clear away the leaves, workers risk smoke inhalation and sometimes suffer burns of their feet.

As one former labor inspector told HRW, “Sugarcane has the most risks. It’s indisputable - sugarcane is the most dangerous [agricultural work].”

Although not as hazardous, planting sugar cane, which is often performed by girls, is also difficult and exhausting as planters must keep up with tractors that make rows for the cane, also in the hot sun.

In addition, children who work on sugarcane plantations, particularly during the harvest, are often required to miss the first several months of school each year, while older children often drop out of school entirely.

Sugar production has grown in importance in El Salvador since the 1950s and by 1971 exceeded the production of basic grains. By the 1990s, sugar, which was produced mainly by state-owned plantations, had become El Salvador’s second-largest export crop after coffee. Beginning in 1995, most of the plantations were privatized.

Coca-Cola does not own any of these plantations nor does it buy the cane directly from them. Instead, it buys the sugar milled from the cane from El Salvador’s largest sugar mill, Central Izalco.

Coca-Cola’s own guiding principles provide that its direct suppliers “will not use child labor as defined by local law,” but, according to correspondence exchanged between HRW and the company, Coca-Cola has applied this requirement only to Izalco, even though HRW’s research found that Izalco purchased sugar cane from at least four plantations that use child labor in violation of the law.

“[That] means that Coca-Cola’s supplier mill can comply with Coca-Cola’s guiding principles even though it is aware that the sugar it refines is harvested in part by child labor,” HRW concluded.

“If Coca-Cola is serious about avoiding complicity in the use of hazardous child labor,” said Bochenek, “the company should recognize its responsibility to ensure that respect for human rights extend beyond its direct suppliers.”

To do so, Coca-Cola and other businesses that buy Salvadoran sugar from mills should also require their suppliers to incorporate international standards on child labor in their contracts with the plantations and adopt effective monitoring systems to verify that compliance, according to HRW.

Its report marks the latest in a growing number of efforts by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to press multinational corporations to take more responsibility for labor conditions under which their products, or components of their products, are produced.

Under pressure from NGOs, for example, major chocolate manufacturers agreed last year to take part in a program to monitor West African cocoa plantations to ensure their compliance with minimum international child labor standards.

Initially, the chocolate manufacturers insisted that they bore no responsibility for abusive practices because they bought their beans from commodity brokers rather than from the farmers themselves, but they changed their position as NGOs, especially in the US and Britain, increased pressure.

G-8: unprecedented military and law
enforcement presence works to stifle dissent

Compiled by Dustin Ryan

June 16 (AGR)-- Military aircraft drowned out the sound of surf, gunboats cruised a historic riverfront, and Secret Service agents guarded a beach road as security was tightened in preparation for President Bush’s arrival for the Group of Eight Summit running from June 8 to June 10 on Sea Island, Georgia. Concrete barriers, metal fencing and checkpoints were put into place around key buildings and routes. Between 10,000 and 20,000 federal, state and local officers were on duty in Sea Island, adjoining St. Simons Island, nearby Brunswick on the mainland and 80 miles north in Savannah. A long, parallel set of 7-foot-high, metal-mesh fences protected the only road that leads to the island, and black-clad Secret Service agents stood guard. The surrounding waters were under close watch as well. Twenty-five-foot Coast Guard patrol boats armed with M-240 machine guns were on patrol, with their crews armed with M-16 assault rifles and shotguns.

In Savannah, National Guard troops in sand-colored Humvees began cruising the cobblestone streets and oak-shaded squares of the historic downtown while helicopters hovered overhead. Coast Guard boats with mounted machine guns patrolled the Savannah River between the summit’s media center on Hutchinson Island and the city’s riverfront promenade of oyster bars and T-shirt shops.

The success of the G8 protest and alternative events was shadowed by a law enforcement
and military presence considered to be the most intense in United States history. To control protests, a preemptive state of emergency was announced by Georgia’s Governor just days before the events, federalizing national guard troops and creating an ever-present security state. Local residents were told they would risk arrest if they participated in G8 protest events, and organizers were constantly videotaped and followed.

The National Lawyers Guild condemned the recent announcement by Governor Perdue of Georgia declaring a state of emergency merely because protests were expected in connection with the G8 summit. The Guild labeled the actions in both states as gross overreactions to vastly inflated security concerns. Michael Avery, President of the Lawyers Guild, stated, “The Government is using an exaggerated threat of disruption in order to demonize and discourage legitimate political protest. If the declaration of emergency by Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia were justified, it would have made sense to put the entire South under a state of emergency for the entire period of the civil rights movement.”

Protesters tried to get the last word June 10 as the Group of Eight summit came to a close. A seven mile march was a protest against the Israeli occupation and was done in solidarity with all peoples of the Middle Mast; the marchers had broken off from a larger Palestine solidarity march. The demonstrators, led by about 20 dressed in black and walking arm-in-arm, then marched to the main security checkpoint leading to St. Simons Island. After a brief confrontation with riot police, they were allowed to pass and about 75 of the protesters crossed the 4-mile causeway linking the mainland to St. Simons. There was some minor shoving between some officers and protesters as the marchers were asked to walk on the sidewalk instead of in the middle of the causeway that crosses mostly marsh. Traffic was disrupted, mostly by police blocking the road.

After reaching the gates on St. Simons Island, which has the only road that leads to Sea Island, more than 150 police officers in riot gear pushed them back by thrusting their batons. About 15 of the people who made it to the gates sat down for a silent vigil. They were all surrounded and immediately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. A couple of those who were not silent about this arrest were immediately beaten, one resulting in contusions on his face, arm, and leg, as he was smashed face-down into the ground.

As the group was led into the jail, about a dozen of their fellow activists stood on a nearby sidewalk and shouted encouragement. An attorney volunteering as a National Lawyers Guild observer said he hoped to get the group released. “As far as I know, their only aim is to exercise their right to free speech and assembly and complain about a government they believe is oppressive,” Atlanta lawyer Bill Cristman said. “From what I’ve seen so far, I’m inclined to agree with them.”

Glynn County Sheriff Wayne Bennett said those arrested — three women and 12 men — would be booked into jail and allowed to post a $237 bail if they gave proper identification and didn’t face any outstanding warrants. That appeared unlikely, however. The sheriff said they all identified themselves as John Doe or Jane Doe. However, four females and three males have been bailed out.

On June 11 there was a protest that converged at a park and went across to the Glynn County courthouse, with people banging posters of the bill of rights on jail house windows in a direct response to the arrests that occurred the day prior. Two people were arrested outside the courthouse, and the remaining people were asked to leave and not return. Two (one female, one male) were detained at the court house on Friday after the hearing for the first set of arrestees. They are charged with Criminal Trespass. One protester was arrested on the evening of June 11 at the courthouse, and was unrelated to the first 2 courthouse arrests. She is also charged with Criminal Trespass. Friends of the 14 jailed protesters vowed to remain in Brunswick until they are released. “If it means we’re going to have to establish an ongoing encampment until they’re free, we’ll do that,’’ said Lisa Fithian, co-chair of the National Peace and Justice Coalition.

June 10th an unknown number of individuals shut down access to Research Triangle Park (RTP), in the Raleigh-Durham area, to protest the silencing of dissent, the destruction of the environment, and the undermining of democracy by corporate and government interests, according to a press release. Signs, including a 20 by 40 foot banner, were hung over the Durham Freeway and I-40 Thursday morning reading, “Caution- G-8 and RTP equals exploitation and greed.”

“They found someone had jury-rigged the arms on the railroad to come down and some explosive looking devices were found in the area,” said Lt. Norman Blake. Three intersections were blocked this way while five more intersections were blocked with steel cables. A total of eight intersections were blocked. This act of civil disobedience coincided with the final day of the G8 meetings on Sea Island in Georgia. Research Triangle Park is host to many corporations that are complicit in destructive dealings, according to the press release. No one was hurt in the scare which police are calling a domestic terrorist act.

Downtown Raleigh was on a heightened security alert June 12. The state closed the Capitol, the Archive Building and the Museum of History, fearing a violent protest of the G8 Summit in Georgia. Meanwhile, the gathering of protesters near the legislative building campaigned against capitalism and the G8 Summit. A small, peaceful “free market” at the Children’s Garden was held near the intersection of Lane and Wilmington streets. About 200 people gathered at the garden for what was billed as the “Really, Really Free Market.” Dubbed by organizers as a festival, the event started at 10 am and ended at 6 pm, according to a permit issued to the group by the N.C. Dept. of Administration. The purpose of the gathering, timed to coincide with the G-8 Summit, was to present people with “an economic alternative” to the global corporate structure, said UNC-Chapel Hill student Nick Shepard. There were no arrests. Protesters also had hung signs over nearby overpasses opposing the G8 Summit on June 8.

The perceived police overkill frightened Nick Shepard, who was one of the free market organizers. He was also among the participants who complained about being followed by law enforcement snapping their pictures from unmarked vehicles.” I showed up around here at noon, and two police offices on bikes rode up to me and asked me why was I here,” Shepard said. “They followed me awhile, and then two men in an unmarked white pickup truck filmed me on a camcorder. To be honest, I was scared.”

“The main reason I came out was to check out the police,” said Bryan Proffitt of Raleigh, who had just returned from the G-8 Summit and described a “massive” law enforcement presence there. “I’m getting increasingly concerned about our civil liberties,” he said. “They’re not playing.”