text:
A Member of the
NEW ORLEANS COMMUNITY Residing in the Bay Area
TUESDAY MAY 22nd - 7pm
$5-10 sliding scale donation –
no one turned away for lack of funds
(near 19th Street BART Station)
Sponsored By The Bay Area Labor
Committee For Peace & Justice/USLAW
For more info: 510-540-0845
LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
1) The Right to Paid Sick Days
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 15, 2007
2) In Divided New Orleans
May 15, 2007
3) Che's Fans in Iraq
By Mike Nizza
May 15, 2007, 9:28 am
4) After Ordnance Scare, Beachgoers Told to Dig With Care
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
May 15, 2007
5) Red Cross Report Says Israel Disregards Humanitarian Law
By STEVEN ERLANGER
May 15, 2007
6) Guantánamo Detainees' Suit Challenges Fairness
of Military's Repeat Hearings
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
May 15, 2007
7) In Deal, a Test for the U.A.W.
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
May 15, 2007
8) Satellites Show Harvest of Mud That Trawlers Leave Behind
By CORNELIA DEAN
May 15, 2007
9) LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM THE 6th
Fidel Castro Ruz
May 14, 2007
5: 12 pm
10) Somewhere over the Rainbow:
A report from a Kansas Mutual Aid
member from tornado devastated
Greensburg, Kansas
by Dave Strano
Kansas Mutual Aid member
Lawrence, Kansas
11) Court seeks Colombian lawmakers in growing scandal
Mon May 14, 2007 3:39PM EDT
12) More than 500 citizens of ECUADOR were victims
of massacres in Colombia
By AFP 5/14/2007 07:46 hours
VIA Email from: Greg McDonald
13) For blacks, the folly of the Iraq war hits home
Derrick Z. Jackson, THE BOSTON GLOBE
Monday, May 14, 2007
14) A Statement by William Singletary,
a witness in the case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal (1995 PCRA hearing), is what
follows below. This statement was sent to the
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal, in order that it be read at
rallies held in solidarity with death-
row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on the
day of what likely is his last appeal
hearing--before a panel of the Third
Circuit federal court in Philadelphia,
PA, May 17th 2007.
15) Deal Is Reached in Senate on Immigration
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID STOUT
May 17, 2007
16) Clash of Hope and Fear as Venezuela Seizes Land
By SIMON ROMERO
May 17, 2007
17) Venezuela Lets Councils Bloom;
Critics Say Chávez Backs Local Bodies to Boost Central Control
By Juan Forero
The Washington Post
May 17, 2007
18) Feds Crack Down on Immigrant Labor Organizers
A series of North Carolina immigration raids
weren't just about deporting undocumented workers
-- they were about busting unions.
By David Bacon
19) The Department of Defense -- Bringing Historical
Revisionism to a High School Near You
By Chris Rodda Sun May 13, 2007 at 11:25:30 AM EST
20) Analysis Finds Large Antarctic Area Has Melted
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
May 16, 2007
21) Citing Racist Bias, Attorneys for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Urge a Federal Appeals Court to Grant the Former Black
Panther a New Trial
Friday, May 18th, 2007
VIA Email from: Mike Friedman
22) "Sicko" Is Completed and We're Off to Cannes!
By Michael Moore
May 17, 2007
23) Young, Ill and Uninsured
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 19, 2007
24) Their Master's Voice
May 19, 2007
25) Couple Learn the High Price of Easy Credit
By JOHN LELAND
May 19, 2007
26) Southern Ocean saturated with carbon dioxide: study
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
Thu May 17, 2007 3:07PM EDT
27) LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM THE 6thHEMISPHERIC MEETING IN HAVANA
Fidel Castro Ruz
May 14, 2007
5: 12 pm
28) 'Sicko' Stars Thank Moore for Cuba Trip
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:35 a.m. ET
May 19, 2007
29) 29) Moore film attacks US health care, wider society
By Mike Collett-White
May 19, 2007
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, a CSN volunteer translator)
Friday, May 18, 2007
CSN News
31) Colombia warlord claims US link to funds
By DARCY CROWE, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 17, 9:32 PM ET
1) The Right to Paid Sick Days
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 15, 2007
It sounds reasonable: seven paid sick days a year. Why
should you have to lose a couple of days pay, or maybe
even your job, because you had the misfortune to catch
the flu?
And it certainly seems unreasonable to penalize an
employee in good standing who misses a day or two
of work to care for a child who is ill or has met
with a serious accident.
After all, this is the 21st century.
The reality, for a surprising percentage of the U.S.
population, is more like the 19th century. Nearly
half of all full-time private sector workers in the U.S.
get no paid sick days. None. If one of those workers
woke up with excruciating pains in his or her chest
and had to be rushed to a hospital — well, no pay
for that day. For many of these workers, the cost
of an illness could be the loss of their job.
The situation is ridiculous for those in the lowest
quarter of U.S. wage earners. Nearly 80 percent of
those workers — the very ones who can least afford
to lose a day's pay — get no paid sick days at all.
I recently spoke with Bertha Brown, a home health
aide who lives in Philadelphia and has two young
daughters. She makes $7 an hour caring for people
who are ill or disabled. "I feed them and dress
them," she said. "And if they have to be changed,
I do all that."
She has worked for the better part of two decades
without ever being paid for a sick day. And her
wages are so low she can't afford to lose even
a day's pay. "If I get sick, I work sick," she said.
"I cover my nose and my mouth with a mask to keep
my clients from getting sick."
Food service workers are among those least likely
to get paid sick days. Eighty-six percent get no sick
days at all. They show up in the restaurants coughing
and sneezing and feverish, and they start preparing
and serving meals. You won't see many of them wearing
There's an effort under way to change this picture.
A growing number of organizations and activists are
lining up behind proposed federal legislation that would
give most workers the right to seven paid sick days
annually to take care of their medical needs or those
of their families. The legislation, sponsored by Senator
Edward Kennedy and Representative Rosa DeLauro, would
require employers with 15 or more workers to provide
the sick days.
Among the organizations pushing for paid sick days
is the Public Welfare Foundation in Washington, which
recently approved a $1 million "special initiative"
on the issue. Deborah Leff, the foundation's president,
noted that it's the poorest workers who most often are
forced to choose between going to work sick or losing
a day's pay, and that a disproportionate number of
those workers are women — many of them with children.
"At least 145 countries have paid sick days," said
Ms. Leff. "The United States is the only industrialized
country lacking such a policy. Our goal is to change that."
An overwhelming majority of Americans favor paid sick
days for full-time workers. One poll showed that 95 percent
of workers find it "unacceptable" for employers to deny
sick days to workers. But the Kennedy-DeLauro legislation
is facing a tough road.
As one might imagine, the industries that would be affected
are ice-cold to the idea.
The response of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store to my
inquiries on this issue is illustrative. A spokeswoman
said in an e-mail message: "Because employees working
in the restaurants have flexible schedules, they can
schedule doctors' appointments and other appointments
that sick leave and personal time are generally used
for at times when they are not working.
"If employees need to miss a shift due to illness,
there are generally many opportunities to make up that
lost shift later in the week, or the next week."
That is the kind of workplace policy that prompts
Debra Ness, the president of the National Partnership
for Women and Families, to note that "for millions
of workers, getting sick can mean the beginning
of an economic disaster."
Allowing a worker to recuperate from an illness,
or take care of a sick child, without suffering undue
economic hardship should be a matter of basic humanity
and fundamental decency. It should not be politically
controversial in a country that considers itself the
most advanced on the face of the earth, and that babbles
incessantly about the importance of family values.
2) In Divided New Orleans
May 15, 2007
When President Bush spoke to the nation soon after
Hurricane Katrina, he was resolute that the city would
be rebuilt. "We will do what it takes," he said. We —
the federal, state and city governments; elected officials
and the citizens who hire them — have failed spectacularly.
Homes and schools remain empty or imaginary; evacuees and
survivors wait in cramped trailers, unable to return or
rebuild. A huge silence still hangs over the Lower Ninth
Ward, a place every American should see, to witness
firsthand how truckloads of promises have filled New
Orleans's vast devastation with nothing.
That the Lower Ninth is overwhelmingly black is not
irrelevant. African-Americans were the predominant
and poorest members of this city before the storm,
they bore the worst of it and have the farthest
journey back to stability. A study issued last week
by the Kaiser Family Foundation, based on interviews
last fall with residents of Orleans, Jefferson,
Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, maps the outlines
of a sharp racial divide.
In Orleans Parish, twice as many African-Americans
as whites said their lives were still "very" or "somewhat"
disrupted. Seventy-two percent of blacks said they had
problems getting health care, compared with 32 percent
of whites. Blacks were more likely to say that their
financial status, physical and mental health, and job
security had worsened since the storm. And they expressed
considerably more anxiety than whites about the sturdiness
of the rebuilt levees, the danger from future Katrinas
and the prospect of living without enough money or health
care, or a decent, affordable home.
There was a consensus about broad categories of the
recovery: solid majorities thought there had been at
least some progress in restoring basic services, reopening
schools and business and fixing levees. But in three
vital areas — rebuilding neighborhoods, controlling
crime and increasing the supply of affordable housing
— most agreed that there had been no progress or
"not too much."
Even with the constant trickle of bad news, you can
find minimal improvements. Thousands of building permits
have been issued. A crisis was recently averted when
the Bush administration extended temporary housing
assistance for tens of thousands of displaced families.
Some government housing subsidies that were to expire
at the end of August will continue until March 2009.
It is also encouraging that administration of the
housing program will shift from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to the Department of Housing and
Urban Development, which has always been the logical
choice, given its experience in housing needy families.
Other positive signs include the halting progress toward
a workable redevelopment plan, and a recent finding that
the city's population had grown to above half of its
level before the storm.
The Kaiser survey even found signs of hope when it tested
for resilience in a proud city. Sixty-nine percent of
respondents said they were optimistic about New Orleans's
future. And only 11 percent said they planned to leave.
Their faith must not be betrayed. Residents in the survey
were keenly aware that their city's fitful recovery would
be devastated if the levees failed again. They put strong
levees above all other priorities, including fighting
crime and even basic services like electricity and water.
And yet National Geographic has reported that an engineer
has found signs that levees were poorly rebuilt and are
already eroding. There is no room for error here.
3) Che's Fans in Iraq
By Mike Nizza
May 15, 2007, 9:28 am
Che Guevara may not live, as one of the latest installments
in his T-shirt line claims, but he still has fans leading
South American nations, and now, starting insurgent groups
in Iraq.
A previously-unknown group is using Che's image in leaflets
announcing a "movement of Iraqi Communists and Marxists
experienced in armed struggle, leftist Iraqi nationalists,
and their supporters," according to Iraq Slogger.
The Iraqi Armed Revolutionary Resistance, a hardly striking
name to add to an already crowded list, called out a long
list of enemies, including the "puppet government, the
so-called Council of Representatives, terrorist Salafis,
militias, the Interior Ministry, Iraqi traitors who came
on American tanks, the American and British mercenaries,
contractors, and their servants from the South Lebanese
The group seems unlikely to inspire Iraqis who would
most strongly identify with their political beliefs.
Since 1934, the far left of the nation's idealogical
spectrum has been claimed by the Iraqi Communist Party.
Last month, a spokesmen said that the party's nonviolent
message was what attracted thousands of Iraqis to 73rd
anniversary celebrations.
"The Communist Party appeals to people because it is not
tainted with corruption and does not have blood on its
hands from sectarian killings. People are seeing the
party as hope, as a potential alternative, something
different," Salam Ali told Political Affairs, which
specializes in Marxist news.
Also in stark contrast to today's insurgent declaration,
party faithful spent May Day marching peacefully in Baghdad.
In these photographs, some were even smiling.
And if there's one thing we've learned from insurgent
photos, it's that they never, ever smile.
4) After Ordnance Scare, Beachgoers Told to Dig With Care
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
May 15, 2007
SURF CITY, N.J., May 14 — Sun worshipers coming to this
Jersey Shore town should be happy that the closed beaches
will soon be reopening. But they might want to rethink
what they bring.
Pail and small shovel: check. Sand spade and metal detector:
skip. Beach umbrella: proceed with caution.
After removing 1,111 pieces of potentially explosive
military ordnance from the sand and surf, the United
States Army Corps of Engineers is ready to declare the
beaches here and in neighboring Ship Bottom safe and
recommend that they be reopened in time for Memorial Day.
So, once the State Department of Environmental Protection
approves, the "Beach Closed" signs will come down. But in
their place will be new signs prohibiting beachgoers from
using metal detectors or digging deeper than a foot into
the sand. These "land-use controls" will be posted at every
entrance and on every lifeguard stand along the 1.4 miles
of affected beach on Long Beach Island.
"We really don't expect anybody to find anything, but you
don't know," George Follett, an explosives safety specialist
for the Army Corps who has been overseeing the removal
of the devices, said on Monday. "If there's a lot of wave
action, something might be uncovered." Keith Watson, the
project manager, said he did not expect umbrellas to pose
a problem, but children digging too deep might be warned
to ease off.
The corps will be holding training sessions with all police,
fire and beach personnel, and any interested citizens,
about how to handle situations should they arise,
Mr. Watson said.
"We'll be training badge checkers and lifeguards what
to look out for," he said, "and when they see someone
digging too far, they'll politely tell them not to.
It's all part of the public relations."
It is one public relations campaign that Joe Muzzillo,
who owns a Surf City beach shop, could live without.
Or maybe not. After hearing that sand castle building
and hole digging would be restricted, Mr. Muzzillo
decided to skip buying any sand toys and umbrellas
for his shop, Exit 63 WearHouse. Instead of the beach
paraphernalia, the store's back wall is now lined with
T-shirts that carry slogans like "Save a Tourist — Find
a Bomb," "Surf City's Da Bomb" and "I Got Bombed
on L.B.I.," for Long Beach Island.
Aside from a couple of complaints, reactions to the shirts
have been "98 percent positive," Mr. Muzzillo said. Still,
he's predicting a weak summer. "Even if the beach is open,
I think it's going to suffer," he said. "If kids can't
dig and do the normal things kids do, it could be kind
of traumatic, especially when they hear the explanation
for why. Is a kid ever going to want to dig in the sand
Mary Madonna, the Surf City borough clerk, said the
borough has had an ordinance that prohibits digging more
than 12 inches at the beach since 2002, when a boy in
nearby Loveladies died after digging a deep tunnel that
collapsed on him. But she and others at Borough Hall
could not say how strictly the law has been enforced.
In Ship Bottom, where about 10 percent of the beaches
are affected by the new guidelines, a regulation against
digging deep holes also exists, but Mayor William
Huelsenbeck said that there was no set depth and that
enforcement was left to the discretion of lifeguards.
"We've always discouraged deep holes; nothing will
change," Mayor Huelsenbeck said. "Kids can use their
shovels and pails. As for metal detectors, certainly
we would discourage people from trying to look for
these things."
The explosives problem arose on March 5 when a resident
using a metal detector came upon a rusted military fuze,
an ignition device incorporating mechanical or electric
elements, buried in the sand. Believed to have been dumped
off the sides of ships sometime during World War I, the
discarded military munitions lay on the ocean floor for
90 years or more, according to Mr. Follett. Last fall,
the Army Corps dredged up 500,000 cubic yards of sand
from the bottom of the Atlantic as part of a $9 million
beach replenishment program for Surf City and part
of Ship Bottom.
The joy of getting new, wider beaches was quickly diminished
by the discovery of the ordnance, which corps officials said
could cause injury or death if detonated.
For the past six weeks, contractors hired by the corps
have been sweeping every inch of the replenished beach,
using equipment that Mr. Watson and Mr. Follett said could
detect devices as deep as three feet with 95 percent
At the start of the cleanup effort, Mr. Follett said, the
contractors were finding as many as 40 to 50 devices a day.
On Monday, doing a second sweep of the areas stirred up
by the recent northeaster, the crews found one device. The
cleanup has cost $2.3 million to date, according to
Mr. Watson, who added that the corps might have to undertake
a similar effort next winter.
"Beaches are a dynamic thing," he said. "We're not leaving.
We'll follow it through to the end."
5) Red Cross Report Says Israel Disregards Humanitarian Law
By STEVEN ERLANGER
May 15, 2007
JERUSALEM, May 14 — The International Committee of the Red
Cross, in a confidential report about East Jerusalem and
its surrounding areas, accuses Israel of a "general disregard"
for "its obligations under international humanitarian law —
and the law of occupation in particular."
The committee, which does not accept Israel's annexation
of East Jerusalem, says Israel is using its rights as an
occupying power under international law "in order to further
its own interests or those of its own population to the
detriment of the population of the occupied territory."
With the construction of the separation barrier, the
establishment of an outer ring of Jewish settlements beyond
the expanded municipal boundaries and the creation of
a dense road network linking the different Israeli
neighborhoods and settlements in and outside Jerusalem,
the report says, Israel is "reshaping the development
of the Jerusalem metropolitan area" with "far-reaching
humanitarian consequences." Those include the increasing
isolation of Palestinians living in Jerusalem from the
rest of the West Bank and the increasing difficulty for
some Palestinians to easily reach Jerusalem's schools
and hospitals.
The Red Cross committee, which is recognized as a guardian
of humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions of 1949,
does not publish its reports but provides them in confidence
to the parties involved and to a small number of countries.
This report was provided to The New York Times by someone
outside the organization who wanted the report's conclusions
publicized. The leak came just days before Israel's celebration
of Jerusalem Day this Wednesday, observing the 40th anniversary
of the unification of the city.
The committee is better known for its role in visiting
prisoners all over the world to try to ensure humanitarian
conditions. It has been involved for decades with the Israeli-
Palestinian situation as part of its role in upholding the
Geneva Conventions, which cover the responsibilities
of occupying countries. But its reports rarely surface.
The report considers all land that Israel conquered in the
1967 war to be occupied territory. It was the result of
nine months of work by the committee and was delivered
in late February "to Israel and to a small number of
foreign governments we believe would be in the best
position to help support our efforts for the implementation
of humanitarian law," said Bernard Barrett, a spokesman
for the committee in Jerusalem.
Israeli officials said that they respected the committee
and that they had cooperated with it gladly on issues
ranging from the release of captured Israeli soldiers
to asking its officials to give briefings on international
law to Israeli diplomats and commanders serving in the
occupied West Bank.
They confirmed having received the report, but disagreed
with its premises and conclusions.
"We reject the premise of the report, that East Jerusalem
is occupied territory," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the
Israeli Foreign Ministry. "It is not. Israel annexed
Jerusalem in 1967 and offered full citizenship at the
time to all of Jerusalem's residents. These are facts
that cannot be ignored."
Israel, he said, "is committed to a diverse and pluralistic
Jerusalem, to improving the conditions of all the city's
inhabitants and to protecting their interests as part
of our sovereign responsibility." He added, "If any
population in Jerusalem is thriving and growing, it
is the Arab population."
He also noted that Israel made great efforts to ensure
health care for Palestinians, pointing to 81,000 entry
permits in 2006 for Palestinians needing care inside
Conditions have worsened for Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, which has long had inferior services.
Security restrictions and the barrier that runs around
and through parts of East Jerusalem were Israel's response
to suicide bombings after 2000, but they made it much
more difficult for Palestinians to move into and out
of Jerusalem.
It is virtually impossible for Palestinians from the
West Bank or Gaza to move to Jerusalem if they were
not born in the city; even visiting requires a permit
that can be hard to get. Natural population growth
and building restrictions in Arab parts of the city
means that large families often share very small
Palestinians argue that the building restrictions are
meant to suppress the growth of the their community;
the Israelis counter that zoning restrictions are
imposed throughout the city.
The Red Cross report notes that the separation barrier
"was undertaken with an undeniable security aim," but
adds, "The route of the West Bank barrier is also
following a demographic logic, enclosing the settlement
blocs around the city while excluding built-up Palestinian
areas (thus creating isolated Palestinian enclaves)."
Mustafa Barghouti, spokesman for the Palestinian unity
government, welcomed the report, calling it consistent
with the rulings of the International Court of Justice,
which said in a nonbinding opinion in 2004 that Israel's
security barrier was illegal where it crossed the 1967
lines into occupied territory. "Israel violates
international law with impunity, and couldn't continue
this blunt violation for 40 years if it did not feel
impunity toward the international community,"
Mr. Barghouti said.
6) Guantánamo Detainees' Suit Challenges Fairness
of Military's Repeat Hearings
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
May 15, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 14 — The military system of determining
whether detainees are properly held at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, includes an unusual practice: If Pentagon officials
disagree with the result of a hearing, they order a second
one, or even a third, until they approve of the finding.
These "do-overs," as some critics call them, are among the
most controversial parts of the military's system of
determining whether detainees are enemy combatants, and
the fairness of the repeat hearings is at the center of
a pivotal federal appeals court case.
On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit begins consideration of the
first of what are expected to be scores of challenges
to the military panels' decisions that detainees are
enemy combatants and are properly held.
The case, involving eight detainees, is the first under
a 2005 law that permits a limited review of the panels'
decisions. The repeat hearings have emerged as a major
flashpoint, with lawyers for the government and the
detainees offering the court sharply different
interpretations of their significance, legal filings
and interviews show.
For both sides, the dispute crystallizes the larger
questions now facing the courts over how much leeway
the appeals court judges have to review the decisions
of the hearing panels.
The 2005 law said the court was largely limited to
determining whether the military had followed its
own procedures in determining a detainee's status. But
the lawyers for the detainees are pressing to get the
court to consider the basic fairness of the procedure
Detainees' lawyers say the issue of the repeated hearings
offers the starkest proof that the Pentagon set up a system
of military tribunals not to find the truth about the
detainees but to ratify its own conclusion that the
military had seized the right people.
"When you have a proceeding that comes up with the 'wrong
answer,' " said P. Sabin Willett, one of the detainees'
lawyers, "in this country we don't keep sending it back
to a tribunal until they come up with the 'right answer.'
And we don't do it in secret, and that's what happened here."
Mr. Willett is to argue before the appeals court on Tuesday.
Government lawyers say critics are wrong to compare the
wartime system in Guantánamo, known as combatant status
review tribunals, or C.S.R.T.'s, to the civilian legal
system, which gives defendants extensive rights.
"This is just one of many areas," a government brief said,
"where it is inappropriate to compare C.S.R.T. proceedings
with background principles that stem from domestic criminal
Another aspect to the case in the appeals court that has
caused public debate involves the government's request
that the court tighten restrictions on lawyers for the
detainees. One proposal would have limited the number
of visits the lawyers could make to Guantánamo, a request
that the Justice Department withdrew Friday.
The practice of repeating some of the hearings is shrouded
in secrecy. It first came to public attention in November,
when a report by Seton Hall University Law School documented
that "at least three detainees were initially found not
to be enemy combatants" but were then reclassified as enemy
combatants after a new hearing.
Reviewing records of 102 hearings that were obtained from
the government through lawsuits, the report's authors found
that "at least one detainee, after his first and second
tribunals unanimously determined him not to be an enemy
combatant, had yet a third tribunal" that then classified
him as an enemy combatant. About 380 men are now detained
at Guantánamo.
Military officials have not said in how many cases such
hearings were repeated.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler of the Navy,
acknowledged that some decisions had reversed earlier
findings that detainees were not enemy combatants.
At the same time, Commander Peppler said, after
reconsideration in Washington, some detainees benefited
from tribunal hearings that were repeated and that
reclassified them from enemy combatant to "no longer
enemy combatant," making them eligible for release.
Commander Peppler disputed the way the detainees' lawyers
described the repeat hearings. He said multiple hearings
for a single detainee were part of the process. Under
Defense Department rules, he said, the hearing process
is not finished until a Pentagon official "completes
final review and approval of the decisions of the
The combatant status review process was initiated in
a July 7, 2004, memorandum by Paul D. Wolfowitz, then
the deputy secretary of defense. He acted after a Supreme
Court decision that June suggested that detainees were
entitled to a "fair opportunity to rebut the government's
factual assertions before a neutral decision maker."
As set up by the Pentagon, the tribunals do not permit
detainees to have lawyers at the hearings or to see much
of the evidence against them.
When asked about the detainees' lawyers' assertion that
the tribunal process was not fair, a Justice Department
spokesman, Erik Ablin, said "more process has been afforded
to the detainees than ever provided to enemy combatants
in the history of armed conflict."
Critics of the Bush administration's detention policies
argue that the unusual and indefinite detentions at
Guantánamo raise new questions about the extent of the
government's war powers.
Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University
who has consulted with lawyers for several detainees,
said the repeated hearings were a symptom of the flaws
in the military hearings. "The system is designed,"
Mr. Freedman said, "to validate the holding of everyone
they are now holding."
Because much of the evidence in the combatant status
hearings is classified and much of the process occurs
behind closed doors, little is known about the repeat
One e-mail message from a Pentagon official, declassified
last month in a court case, shows that the official, whose
name remains classified, ordered a new hearing after
a detainee had been determined not to be an enemy combatant.
The e-mail message, apparently from early 2005, noted
that other detainees whose circumstances were similar
had been declared properly held.
The official wrote that "inconsistencies will not cast
a favorable light" on the hearing process or the Pentagon
office in charge of the combatant status review system,
the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention
of Enemy Combatants. After a new hearing, according to
a court document, the detainee was reclassified as an
enemy combatant. He is still at Guantánamo.
Detainees' lawyers say that in recent months they have
learned of other cases, beyond the three identified in
the Seton Hall report last year, that might have involved
repeated hearings.
This month, Susan Baker Manning, a lawyer for seven detainees
involved in the current appeals court case, received a package
of information from the government about the combatant status
hearing of one of the seven. At the bottom of a Pentagon
memorandum dated Jan. 14, 2005, there was a note that said her
client had first been determined not to be an enemy combatant.
But later, the notation continued, it was "ultimately determined
that the detainee is an enemy combatant."
Ms. Manning's client, Hammad Memet, now 29, has been at Guantánamo
for more than five years.
7) In Deal, a Test for the U.A.W.
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
May 15, 2007
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., May 14 — Can private equity investors
fix Chrysler for good, and can they avoid a confrontation
with the United Automobile Workers union?
These are the most pressing questions to arise from the deal
announced Monday for Cerberus Capital Management, which
specializes in restructuring troubled companies, to pay
a total of $7.4 billion to take control of Chrysler, with
most of that money to be invested in the newly independent
By unwinding a nine-year-old merger between Chrysler and
Daimler-Benz of Germany, Cerberus is also taking on
Chrysler's $18 billion obligation for health care and
pensions for employees and retirees.
Any efforts to sharply reduce those perks — which Chrysler
can afford but says represent a cost burden of $1,500
a vehicle — will probably put it at odds with the U.A.W.
The issue will take on added importance in two months,
when the union and Detroit automakers open talks on a new
national contract. The union's position on Chrysler may
influence talks with General Motors and the Ford Motor
Company, with the outcome representing the latest chapter
in the wholesale restructuring of the American auto industry.
For now, the U.A.W. is supporting the deal. Its stance
represents a reversal from only a month ago, when Ron
Gettelfinger, the union president, warned that an equity
player might "strip and flip" Chrysler, selling off its
most valuable parts for a quick profit.
But based on what the union was told of Cerberus's plans,
Mr. Gettelfinger said Monday that the U.A.W. was "confident
enough to say that we support this transaction."
That support may dwindle as the company and the union start
discussing specifics. The most obvious way for Cerberus
to make money off its investment is to cut costs — especially
by reducing the benefits that workers hold sacred, including
medical benefits for workers and their immediate families
for life, with only modest co-payments or deductibles.
"They're going to want us to give something up," Tim Preston,
50, a tradesman at Chrysler's Jefferson Avenue North assembly
plant in Detroit, said Monday.
Chrysler, in fact, has already tried. Last year, the U.A.W.
refused to give Chrysler the same concessions on medical
costs that it granted G.M. and Ford, which it deemed
in far worse shape.
The union also refused to grant deep wage and benefit cuts
to the Delphi Corporation, G.M.'s former parts subsidiary,
which had reached agreement to sell itself to Cerberus
if a labor deal could be reached. Company and union leaders
say those talks are not dead, however.
Except for the early 1980s, when the union granted concessions
at all three car companies, labor talks have been fruitful
for the U.A.W. in recent decades, as it has continued to make
gains in wages and benefits even as tens of thousands of jobs
have been eliminated.
That trend was broken in the last couple of years when the
union agreed to buyouts and retirement incentives for workers
and agreed to concessions at G.M. and Ford.
By showing their support Monday for the Cerberus deal,
U.A.W. leaders may have been trying to set the tricky
groundwork of making the prospect of concessions palatable
to union members as a way to keep Chrysler competitive.
"It does promise some creative and maybe not-business-as-
usual solutions," said John Paul MacDuffie, co-director of
the International Motor Vehicle Program at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
No requests have been made of the union yet, but both
Mr. Gettelfinger and senior Chrysler executives say
there seems to be a meeting of minds.
"We have been led to believe that they are very concerned
about the American automobile industry," said Mr. Gettelfinger,
who spent four hours with Chrysler executives this weekend
being briefed.
His reaction was clearly a relief to the Cerberus chairman,
John W. Snow, the former Treasury secretary, who joined
DaimlerChrysler officials in Stuttgart, Germany, at
a news conference on Monday.
"We're going to work to make sure this company succeeds,
and as the company succeeds, it will maximize opportunities
for workers," Mr. Snow said. "Our objective is a successful
Chrysler and a successful Chrysler creates opportunities."
Some workers, however, were skeptical. "It makes me real
nervous," said Anthony Watson, 36, a chassis assembly
worker at Chrysler's truck plant in Warren, Mich.
Richard Burns, 39, an assembly line worker at the Warren
plant, just north of Detroit, said he and many of his
colleagues did not know much about Cerberus. "We're
scared they're going to break us up," he said.
Cerberus officials insisted Monday that was not the case.
Under the complicated deal, Cerberus will take an
80.1 percent stake in the new company, to be known
as Chrysler Holding. Of the $7.4 billion, Cerberus
agreed to invest $5 billion in the new Chrysler and
$1.05 billion in Chrysler's financial arm. The remaining
$1.35 billion will go to the former German parent company.
In turn, DaimlerChrysler has agreed to lend Chrysler
Holding $400 million and will absorb $1.6 billion in
costs related to a restructuring program under way at
Chrysler, which said in February that it would cut
13,000 jobs and close all or part of four factories.
Investors in DaimlerChrysler showed their support for
the deal Monday by bidding up the shares $2.12, to $84.12.
The Cerberus deal will have little impact on shareholders
of the German parent company, other than the financial
impact of shedding Chrysler.
All told, DaimlerChrysler will spend $677 million in cash
on the transaction. Daimler-Benz paid $36 billion for
Chrysler in 1998 in what was portrayed as a merger of
equals but ended up being a German takeover of the
American company.
In hindsight, the merger's early days were its best. At
the time, Chrysler was rolling in profit, from the popularity
of its big Jeeps and minivans, while Mercedes-Benz was
enjoying a comeback for its cars, especially the E-class
sedan and the M-class, its first S.U.V.
The architects of that earlier merger, Jürgen E. Schrempp,
the former chief executive at Daimler-Benz, and Robert J.
Eaton, who ran Chrysler, envisioned a company that married
the mass-market success of Chrysler and the luxury appeal
of Mercedes. But Chrysler did not consistently deliver
on its promise.
Indeed, for the last 30 years, Chrysler has acted like
what might be described as a split-personality car company,
with wide and fast swings from highs to lows.
The same big vehicles, for example, that generated big
profits in the late 1990s put Chrysler out of step with
changing consumer tastes when gas prices soared.
Last summer, as many as 100,000 unsold Chryslers piled
up on storage lots, a big factor in Chrysler's $1.5
billion loss for 2006. Last year, it fell to fourth
place in the American market, behind Toyota.
In February, Mr. Schrempp's successor, Dieter Zetsche,
who ran Chrysler from 2000 to 2005, said the company
would eliminate 13,000 jobs, or 16 percent of the total
staff, and close all or part of four plants in its second
restructuring in seven years.
Mr. Zetsche also put Chrysler up for sale, attracting
a series of bidders, including Cerberus as well as two
other equity players, the Blackstone Group and Centerbridge
The billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who had often tangled
with Chrysler management, also put in a bid, as did Magna
International, the Canadian auto parts supplier.
The Cerberus deal represents a sea change in Detroit,
where there has not been a major privately held company
in over half a century (the Ford Motor Company, in which
the Ford family still has a controlling stake, went
public in 1956; G.M. has been public for nearly
a century.)
As a private company, Chrysler may be able to better
explore, with less public scrutiny, ways to lower health
care costs with its workers.
One idea may come from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Company, which is giving the United Steelworkers union
$1 billion to take over a health care plan covering
30,000 retired workers.
Executives from all of Detroit's companies have studied
the plan, which would probably cost the auto industry
tens of billions of dollars to carry out in the United
States. But if the U.A.W. did agree, it would mean removing
the liability from the car companies.
Whatever the answer, many industry experts predict that
Chrysler will find some way to resurrect itself.
"This history of coming back from near death over and
over — the nine lives of Chrysler — does have a powerful
hold within the company, and with their suppliers and
with the union workers," Professor MacDuffie said.
Nick Bunkley contributed reporting.
8) Satellites Show Harvest of Mud That Trawlers Leave Behind
By CORNELIA DEAN
May 15, 2007
Scientists have known for years that when fishing trawlers
drag nets and gear across the ocean bottom they trap or kill
almost all the fish, mollusks and other creatures they
encounter. And the dragging destroys underwater features
like reefs, turning the bottom to mud.
Now, scientists have used satellite images to show fleets
of trawlers leaving plumes of mud behind them like contrails.
They hope the images will focus wider attention on trawling
damage, and on the possible uses of satellites to monitor
One of the researchers, Kyle Van Houtan, who earned his
doctorate in environmental science in December at Duke,
began the work when he was studying the nesting success
of sea turtles and wanted to check the influence of
shrimpers, who trawl the bottom for their catch. He turned
for guidance to Daniel Pauly, director of the fisheries
center at the University of British Columbia, which maintains
an elaborate global database on fishing.
Looking at satellite photos of boats at work, "I kept
seeing lines on the images," Dr. Van Houtan said in
a telephone interview. "My first thought was they looked
like contrails from aircraft." Instead, he and Dr. Pauly
dubbed them "mudtrails."
Churning up mud does immense harm, Dr. Pauly said in a
telephone interview. Fish cannot see in water that is murky
with suspended sediment. The mud can also clog their gills
and set off algae blooms, which, in turn, lead to vast
increases in bacteria. Ultimately, the result is a dead
Even if that worst case does not materialize, trawling
can change a vibrant ocean bottom into, in effect,
a shrimp farm. The mud of repeatedly trawled areas is
congenial to shrimp, Dr. Van Houtan said, "but anything
else you might like to eat, like tuna, is gone."
"It was one of those eureka moments," he said of his
realization that mudtrails were visible from space.
When he looked at images of prime fishing areas, "we
saw an amazing density of boats," he said. "You can
see the birds following the boats to get the discarded
The good news, Dr. Pauly said, is that trawlers and their
mudtrails can be seen so clearly that it would in theory
be possible to monitor fishing by satellite. Even if
captains of individual boats do not want to cooperate
in such efforts, Dr. Pauly said, "we can see what they do."
Ocean Pollution: "OCEANS WITHOUT FISH"
By Roland Sheppard
9) LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM THE 6th
Fidel Castro Ruz
May 14, 2007
5: 12 pm
María Luisa Mendonça brought to the meeting in Havana, a powerful
documentary film on the subject of manual sugarcane cutting in Brazil.
As I did in my previous reflection, I have written a summary using
María Luisa's own paragraphs and phrases. It goes as follows:
We are aware that most of the wars in the last few decades have been
waged over control of energy sources. Both in central and peripheral
nations, energy consumption is guaranteed for the privileged sectors,
while the majority of the world's population does not have access to
basic services. The per capita consumption of energy in the United
States is 13,000 kilowatts, while the world average is 2,429 and in
Latin America the average is 1,601.
The private monopoly of energy sources is ensured by clauses in the
bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements.
The role of the peripheral nations is to produce cheap energy for the
central wealthy nations, which represents a new phase in the
colonization process.
It's necessary to demystify all the propaganda about the alleged
benefits of agrifuels. In the case of ethanol, the growing and
processing of sugarcane pollutes the soil and the sources of drinking
water because it uses large amounts of chemical products.
Ethanol distillation produces a residue called vinasse. For every
liter of ethanol produced, 10 to 13 liters of vinasse are
generated. Part of this residue can be used as fertilizer, but most
of it pollutes rivers and the sources of underground water. If
Brazil were to produce 17 or 18 billion liters of ethanol per year,
this means that at least 170 billion liters of vinasse would be
deposited in the sugarcane field areas. Just imagine the environmental impact.
Burning sugarcane to facilitate the harvesting process, destroys many
of the microorganisms in the soil, contaminates the air and causes
many respiratory illnesses.
The Brazilian National Institute of Space Research issues a state of
emergency almost every year in Sao Paulo -where 60% of Brazil's
ethanol production takes place- because the burning-off has plunged
the humidity levels in the air to extreme lows, between 13% and 15%;
breathing is impossible during this period in the Sao Paulo area
where the sugarcane harvest takes place.
The expansion of agrienergy production, as we know, is of great
interest to the corporations dealing with genetically modified or
transgenetic organisms, such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Bass and Bayer.
In the case of Brazil, the Votorantim Corporation has developed
technologies for the production of a non-edible transgenetic
sugarcane, and we know of many corporations that are developing this
same type of technology; since there are no measures in place to
avoid transgenetic contamination in the native crop fields, this
practice places food production at risk.
With regards to the denationalization of Brazilian territory, large
companies have bought up sugar mills in Brazil: Bunge, Novo Group,
ADM, Dreyfus as well as business magnates George Soros and Bill Gates.
As a result of all this, we are aware that the expansion of ethanol
production has led to the expulsion of peasants from their lands and
has created a situation of dependency on what we call the sugarcane
economy, not because the sugarcane industry generates jobs, on the
contrary, it generates unemployment because this industry controls
the territory. This means that there is no room for other productive sectors.
At the same time, we are faced with the propaganda about the
efficiency of this industry. We know that it is based on the
exploitation of cheap and slave labor. Workers are paid according to
the amount of sugar cane they cut, not according to number of hours
they have worked.
In Sao Paulo State where the industry is most modern -"modern" is
relative of course- and it is the country's biggest producer, the
goal for each worker is to cut between 10 to 15 tons of cane per day.
Pedro Ramos, a professor at Campinas University, made these
calculations: in the 1980's, the workers cut around 4 tons a day and
were paid the equivalent of more or less 5 dollars. Today, they need
to cut 15 tons of sugarcane to be paid 3 dollars a day.
Even the Ministry of Labor in Brazil made a study which shows that
before, 100 square meters of sugarcane yielded 10 tons; today, with
transgenetic cane one must cut 300 square meters to reach 10
tons. Thus, workers must work three times more to cut 10 tons. This
pattern of exploitation has resulted in serious health problems and
even death for the workers.
A researcher with the Ministry of Labor in Sao Paulo says that in
Brazil, sugar and ethanol are soaked in blood, sweat and death. In
2005, the Ministry of Labor in Sao Paulo reported the death of 450
worker for other causes such as murder and accidents -would this be
because transportation to the refineries is very unsafe?- and also as
a result of illnesses such as heart attack and cancer.
According to María Cristina Gonzaga, who carried out the survey, this
Ministry of Labor research shows that in the last five years, 1,383
sugarcane workers have died in Sao Paulo State alone.
Slave labor is also common in this sector. Workers are usually
migrants from the northeast or from Minas Gerais, lured in by
intermediaries. Normally the contract is not directly with the
company, but through intermediaries -in Brazil we call them "gatos"-
who chose the laborers for the sugar mills.
In 2006, the district attorney's office of the Public Ministry
inspected 74 sugar mills, only in Sao Paulo, and all of them were
taken to court.
In March 2007 alone, the district attorney's office of the Ministry
of Labor rescued 288 workers from slavery in Sao Paulo.
That same month, in Mato Grosso State, 409 workers were pulled out of
a sugar mill that produces ethanol; among them was a group of 150
indigenous people. In Mato Grosso, the central area of the country,
indigenous people are used as slave labor force in the sugar industry.
Every year, hundreds of workers suffer similar conditions in the
fields. What are these conditions? They work without being legally
reported, with no protective equipment, without adequate food or
water, without access to washrooms and with very precarious housing;
moreover, they have to pay for their housing and food, which is very
expensive, and they also have to buy their implements such as boots
and machetes and, of course, when work-related accidents occur, which
is often, they do not receive adequate care.
For us, the central issue is the elimination of the latifundia
because behind this modern façade we have a central issue, and that
is the latifundia in Brazil and, of course, in other Latin American
countries. Likewise, a serious food production policy is called for.
Having said this, I would like to present a documentary that we
filmed in Pernambuco State with sugarcane workers; this is one of the
biggest sugarcane producing regions, and so you will be able to see
what the conditions are really like.
This documentary was made with the Pastoral Land Commission of Brazil
(CPT) and with the unions of forestry workers in the state of Pernambuco.
With this, the outstanding and much admired Brazilian leader
concluded her speech.
And now I shall present the opinions of the sugarcane cutters as they
appeared in the film shown to us by María Luisa. In the documentary,
when the people are not identified by name, they are identified as
being a man, a woman or a young man. I am not including them all
because there were so many.
Severino Francisco de Silva.- When I was 8 years old, my father moved
to the Junco refinery. When I got there, I was about to turn 9; my
father began to work and I was tying up the cane with him. I worked
some 14 or 15 years in the Junco sugar mill.
A woman.- I've been living at the sugar mill for 36 years. Here I was
married and I gave birth to 11 children.
A man.- I've been cutting cane for many years, I don't even know how to count.
A man.- I started working when I was 7 and my life is that: cutting
cane and weeding.
A young man.- I was born here, I'm 23 years old, and I've been
cutting cane since I was 9.
A woman.- I worked for 13 years here in Salgado Plant. I planted
cane, spread fertilizer, cleaned sugarcane fields.
Severina Conceiçäo.- I know how to do all this field work: spread
fertilizer, plant sugar cane. I did it all with a belly this big
(she refers to her pregnancy) and with the basket beside me, and I
kept on working.
A man.- I work; every work is difficult, but sugarcane harvest is the
worst work we have here in Brazil.
Edleuza.- I get home and I wash the dishes, clean the house, do the
house chores, do everything. I used to cut cane and sometimes I'd
get home and I wasn't able to even wash the dishes, my hands were
hurting with blisters.
Adriano Silva.- The problem is that the foreman wants too much of us
at work. There are days when we cut cane and get paid, but there are
days when we don't get paid. Sometimes it's enough, and sometimes it isn't.
Misael.- We have a perverse situation here; the foreman wants to take
off from the weight of the cane. He says that what we cut here is all
that we have and that's that. We are working like slaves, do you
understand? You can't do it like this!
Marco.- Harvesting sugar cane is slave work, it's really hard
work. We start out at 3 in the morning; we get back at 8 at night.
It's only good for the boss, because he earns more every day that
goes by and the worker loses, production decreases and everything is
for the boss.
A man.- Sometimes we go to sleep without having washed, there's no
water, we wash up in a stream down there.
A young man.- Here we have no wood for cooking, each one of us, if we
want to eat, has to go out and find wood.
A man.- Lunch is whatever you can bring from home, we eat just like
that, in the hot sun, carrying on as well as you can in this life.
A young man.- People who work a lot need to have enough food. While
the boss of the sugar plantation has an easy life, with all the best
of everything, we suffer.
A woman.- I have gone hungry. I would often go to bed hungry,
sometimes I had nothing to eat, nothing to feed my daughter with;
sometimes I'd go looking for salt; that was the easiest thing to find.
Egidio Pereira.- You have two or three kids, and if you don't look
after yourself, you starve; there isn't enough to live on.
Ivete Cavalcante.- There is no such thing as a salary here; you have
to clean a ton of cane for eight reales; you earn according to
whatever you can cut: if you cut a ton, you earn eight reales, there
is no set wage.
A woman.- A salary? I've never heard of that.
Reginaldo Souza.- Sometimes they pay us in money. Nowadays they are
paying in money; in the winter they pay with a voucher.
A woman.- The voucher, well, you work and he writes everything down
on paper, he passes it on to another person who goes out to buy stuff
at the market. People don't see the money they earn.
José Luiz.- The foreman does whatever he wants with the
people. What's happening is that I called for him to "calculate the
cane", and he didn't want to. I mean: in this case he is forcing
someone to work. And so the person works for free for the company.
Clovis da Silva.- It's killing us! We cut cane for half a day, we
think we are going to get some money, and when he comes around to
calculate we are told that the work was worth nothing.
Natanael.- The cattle trucks bring the workers here, it's worse than
for the boss's horse; because when the boss puts his horse on the
truck, he gives him water, he puts sawdust down to protect his hoofs,
he gives him hay, and there is a person to go with him; as for the
workers, let them do what they can: get in, shut the door and that's
that. They treat the workers as if they were animals. The
"Pro-Alcohol" doesn't help the workers, it only helps the sugarcane
suppliers, it helps the bosses and they constantly get richer;
because if it would create jobs for the workers, that would be basic,
but it doesn't create jobs.
José Loureno.- They have all this power because in the House, state
or federal, they have a politician representing these sugarcane
mills. Some of the owners are deputies, ministers or relatives of
sugar mill owners, who facilitate this situation for the owners.
A man.- It seems that our work never ends. We don't have holidays,
or a Christmas bonus, everything is lost. Also, we don't even get a
fourth of our salary, which is compulsory; it's what we use to buy
clothes at the end of the year, or clothing for our children. They
don't supply us with any of that stuff, and we see how every day, it
gets much more difficult.
A woman.- I am a registered worker and I've never had a right to
anything, not even medical leaves. When we get pregnant, we have a
right to a medical leave, but I didn't have that right, family
guarantees; I also never got any Christmas bonus, I always got some
little thing, and then nothing more.
A man.- For 12 years he's never paid the bonuses or vacations.
A man.- You can't get sick, you work day and night on top of the
truck, cutting cane, at dawn. I became sick, and I was a strong man.
Reinaldo.- One day I went to work wearing sneakers; when I swung the
machete to cut cane, I cut my toe, I finished work and went home.
A young man.- There are no boots, we work like this, many of us work
barefoot, the conditions are bad. They said that the sugar mill was
going to donate boots. A week ago he cut his foot (he points) because
there are no boots.
A young man.- I was sick, I was sick for three days, I didn't get
paid, they didn't pay me a thing. I saw the doctor to ask for a
leave and they didn't give me one.
A young man.- There was a lad who came from "Macugi". He was at work
when he started to feel sick, and vomit. You need a lot of energy,
the sun is very hot and people aren't made of steel, the human body
just can't resist this.
Valdemar.- This poison we use (he refers to the herbicides) brings a
lot of illness. It causes different kinds of diseases: skin cancer,
bone cancer, it enters the blood and destroys our health. You feel
nauseous, you can even fall over.
A man.- In the period between harvests there is practically no work.
A man.- The work that the foreman tells you to do, must be done;
because as you know, if we don't do it∑ We aren't the bosses; it's
them that are the bosses. If they give you a job, you have to do it.
A man.- I'm here hoping someday to have a piece of land and end my
days in the country, so that I can fill my belly and the bellies of
my children and my grandchildren who live here with me.
Could it be that there is anything else?
End of the documentary.
There is nobody more grateful than I for this testimony and for María
Luisa's presentation which I have just summarized. They make me to
remember the first years of my life, an age when human beings tend to
be very active.
I was born on a privately owned sugarcane latifundium bordering on
the north, east and west on large tracts of land belonging to three
American transnational companies which, together, possessed more than
600 thousand acres. Cane cutting was done by hand in green sugarcane
fields; at that time we didn't use herbicides or even fertilizers. A
plantation could last more than 15 years. Labor was very cheap and
the transnationals earned a lot of money.
The owner of the sugarcane plantation where I was born was a Galician
immigrant, from a poor peasant family, practically an illiterate; at
first, he had been sent here as a soldier, taking the place of a rich
man who had paid to avoid military service and at the end of the war
he was shipped back to Galicia. He returned to Cuba on his own like
countless other Galicians who migrated to other countries of Latin America.
He worked as a hand for an important trans-national company, the
United Fruit Company. He had organizational skills and so he
recruited a large number of day-workers like himself, became a
contractor and ended up buying land with his accumulated profits in
an area neighboring the southern part of the big American company. In
the eastern end of the country, the traditionally independent-minded
Cuban population had increased notably and lacked land; but the main
burden of eastern agriculture, at the beginning of the last century,
rested on the backs of slaves who had been freed a few years earlier
or were the descendents of the old slaves and on the backs of Haitian
immigrants. The Haitians did not have any relatives. They lived
alone in their miserable huts made of palm trees, clustered in
hamlets, with only two or three women among all of them. During the
short harvesting season, cockfights would take place.
The Haitians would bet their pitiful earnings and the rest they used
to buy food which had gone through many intermediaries and was very expensive.
The Galician landowner lived there, on the sugarcane plantation. He
would go out just to tour the plantations and he would talk to anyone
who needed or wanted something from him. Often times he would help
them out, for reasons that were more humanitarian than economic. He
could make decisions.
The managers of the United Fruit Company plantations were Americans
who had been carefully chosen and they were very well paid. They
lived with their families in stately mansions, in selected
spots. They were like some distant gods, mentioned in a respectful
tone by the starving laborers. They were never seen at the sugarcane
fields where they sent their subordinates. The shareholders of the
big transnationals lived in the United States or other parts of the
world. The expenses of the plantations were budgeted and nobody
could increase one single cent.
I know very well the family that grew out of the second marriage of
that Galician immigrant with a young, very poor Cuban peasant girl,
who, like him, had not been able to go to school. She was very
self-sacrificing and absolutely devoted to her family and to the
plantation's financial activities.
Those of you abroad who are reading my reflections on the Internet
will be surprised to learn that that landowner was my father. I am
the third of that couple's seven children; we were all born in a room
in a country home, far away from any hospital, with the help of a
peasant midwife, dedicated heart and soul to her job and calling upon
years of practical experience. Those lands were all handed over to
the people by the Revolution.
I should just like to add that we totally support the decree for
nationalization of the patent from a transnational pharmaceutical
company to produce and sell in Brazil an AIDS medication, Efavirenz,
that is far too expensive, just like many others, as well as the
recent mutually satisfactory solution to the dispute with Bolivia
about the two oil refineries.
I would like to reiterate our deepest respect for the people of our
sister nation of Brazil.
10) Somewhere over the Rainbow:
A report from a Kansas Mutual Aid
member from tornado devastated
Greensburg, Kansas
by Dave Strano
Kansas Mutual Aid member
Lawrence, Kansas
On Saturday May 12, four members of Kansas Mutual Aid, a Lawrence based
class struggle anarchist collective traveled to the small South Central
Kansas town of Greensburg. Our intention was to go as a fact-finding
delegation, to report back to the social justice movement in Lawrence on
what exactly was happening in the city.
On Friday May 4, 2007 Greensburg was almost completely destroyed by a F5
tornado. 97% of the buildings in the town of 1500 were destroyed or
damaged beyond repair. Nearly every single resident was left homeless,
jobless, and devastated. At least eleven people died in the storm, and
hundreds of companion animals, livestock, and wild animals were killed
as well.
According to the 2000 census, 97% of the population of Greensburg was
white, and the median income of the population was a meager $28,000. The
city was and still is comprised of overwhelmingly poor, white working
Shortly after the tornado, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) took control of the recovery efforts in Greensburg. The United
Way became the coordinating organization for relief volunteers but,
after orders came from FEMA, halted the flow of volunteers into
Greensburg. FEMA demanded that Greensburg needed to be "secured" before
the area could be opened to real recovery efforts.
So, as hundreds of recovery volunteers were told to not come to
Greensburg by the United Way, hundreds of police from dozens of Kansas
jurisdictions were mobilized to enter the city and establish "control."
Reports coming from the recovery effort in Greensburg had been woefully
short of information. We made multiple phone calls to the United Way and
other aid agencies, and were told repeatedly not to come, that "We don't
need volunteers at this time." We were told that if we wanted to help,
we should just make a financial donation to the Salvation Army or United
With the experiences of Katrina and other major disasters fresh in our
collective conscious, we decided to go anyway, to assess the situation
and be able to present a better picture to those people in Lawrence that
were rightfully concerned about the effectiveness of the relief efforts.
On the night of Friday May 11, in the spirit of offering solidarity to
the working class population of Greensburg, members of KMA traveled two
hours to Wichita and spent the night there. A mandatory curfew had been
imposed on Greensburg, with no one being able to be in the city between
8pm and 8am. So after a nearly sleepless night, we piled into our
vegetable oil burning car and made the final two hour drive to
Greensburg, careful to not arrive before 8.
Multiple news agencies had reported that because of FEMA, all volunteers
were being denied entry at the checkpoints set up outside the city. As
we approached the checkpoint, we became really nervous, and tried to
make sure we had our story straight.
We were stopped by an armed contingent of Kansas Highway Patrol
Officers. We explained that we had come to help with the relief efforts,
and after a quick stare and glance into our car, the officer in charge
directed us to a red and white tent about half a mile into the town.
It turned out that on Friday the 11th, a week after the tornado
destroyed Greensburg, the Americorps organization was finally given
permission to establish and coordinate volunteer recovery efforts.
Americorps members from St. Louis had set up their base of operations in
a large red and white canopy tent that was also being used a meeting
place for the residents of the city.
Americorps volunteers proved to be pretty reliable for information, and
good contacts to have made while we were down there. Despite the
hierarchical and contradictory aims of the national organization, the
Americorps people on the ground were the only people really offering any
physical recovery aid to the residents of Greensburg.
The four of us from KMA, signed in to the volunteer tent and were given
red wristbands that were supposed to identify us as aid workers. We
decided not to wait to be assigned a location to work, and instead to
travel around the city on foot and meet as many local people as we could.
Our primary goals were numerous. We intended to analyze the situation
and assess how our organization could help from Lawrence. If long term
physical aid was needed from us, we had to make contacts within the
local populace that could offer a place to set up a base camp. We also
intended to find out what happened to the prisoners in the county jail
during and after the storm, and what the current procedure for those
being arrested was. In a highly militarized city, the police and
military were the biggest threat to personal safety.
As we traveled further into the ravaged town, it became clear that the
photographs I had seen had not done justice to what truly had happened
here. All that could be seen was endless devastation in every direction.
There wasn't a single building in this area of the town that had been
left standing. The devastation was near complete. Every single house we
came across in the first moments we entered the town had completely
collapsed. Every single tree was mangled and branchless. Memories of
watching post-nuclear warfare movies filled my head as we walked around
the city.
This was a post-apocalyptic world. The city was eerily empty for the
most part. National Guard troops patrolled in Hummers and trucks.
Occasionally, a Red Cross or Salvation Army truck would drive by. Very
few residents were there working on their homes.
After a short while, we met with several people evacuating belongings
from their home. They told us that FEMA had been there for a week, and
that all FEMA could offer them was a packet of information. The packet,
however, had to be mailed to the recipients, and they had no mailing
address! Their entire house had been destroyed. Their mailbox was
probably in the next county. All they were left to do was evacuate what
few belongings could be saved from their house, and then pull the
non-salvageable belongings and scraps of their house to the curb for the
National Guard trash crews to haul away.
No agency in the city besides Americorps was offering to help with the
removal of this debris, or the recovery of people's homes. FEMA's
mission was to safeguard the property of businesses in the area and
offer "low interest" loans to property owners affected. The National
Guard was on hand along with the local police, to act as the enforcement
mechanism for FEMA, while occasionally hauling debris and garbage out of
the city.
The only building in the city that FEMA and others were working in or
around was the County Courthouse. When we approached this area, we
quickly took notice of the giant air-conditioned FEMA tour buses, along
with dozens of trailers that were now housing the City Hall, police
dispatch centers, and emergency crews.
The media had reported that residents of the city would be receiving
FEMA trailers similar to the ones in New Orleans. The only FEMA trailer
I saw was being occupied by police.
At this location, we tried to formulate some answers as to what had
happened to any prisoners being housed in the county jail during the
storm, as well as the fate of the at least seven people that had been
arrested since the storm.
Not a single person could offer us a real answer. As of the writing of
this article, we are still working to find the answer to that question.
We have ascertained that any prisoners that were in Greensburg during
the storm were sent to Pratt County Jail immediately after the storm had
subsided. However, we still don't know how many people that accounts
for, nor do we know the fate of any arrestees in the week since.
Several of the arrestees after the storm were soldiers from Fort Riley
that were sent in to secure the town. They have been accused of
"looting" alcohol and cigarettes from a grocery store. The residents I
talked to said that they had been told that the soldiers had just
returned from Iraq. Is it a wonder that they would want to get drunk the
first chance they could? The social reality of this situation was
beginning to really set in. The city was in chaos, not because of the
storm, but because of FEMA and the police.
In the immediate recovery after the storm, FEMA and local police not
only worked to find survivors and the dead, but also any firearms in the
city. As you pass by houses in Greensburg, you notice that some are
spraypainted with how many weapons were recovered from the home. This is
central Kansas, a region with extremely high legal gun ownership. Of the
over 350 firearms confiscated by police immediately after the storm,
only a third have been returned to their owners. FEMA and the police
have systematically disarmed the local population, leaving the firepower
squarely in control of the state.
Later in the day we traveled with an Americorps volunteer that turned
out to be the sister of one of the members of the Lawrence
anti-capitalist movement. She gave us a small driving tour of the rest
of the devastation that we hadn't seen yet, and then deposited us in
front of a house of a family that was busy trying to clear out their
flooded basement.
Two days of rain had followed the tornado, and with most houses without
roofs, anything left inside the house that may have survived the initial
storm, was destroyed or at risk of being destroyed. The casualties of
the storm weren't just structures and cars. they were memories and loved
ones, in the forms of photographs, highschool yearbooks, family
memorabilia and momentos. People's entire lives had been swept away by
the storm.
We joined in the effort to help clear the basement, and listened to the
stories of the storm that the family told us. They explained that they
had just spent their life savings remodeling the basement, and now it
was gone. It had survived just long enough to save them and some
neighbors from the storm.
We removed whatever belongings were left in the basement, and sorted the
belongings into five piles. The smallest of the piles by far, as the
pile of things that were salvageable and worth keeping. The other piles
included one for wood debris, one for metal, one for hazardous waste,
and another pile for anything else that needed to be removed. From under
one of the piles, a scent of rotting flesh wafted through the air. The
family was afraid to look and see what may be hidden under the metal.
As we were preparing to leave the work site after clearing the entire
basement, we were thanked heartily by the family and their friends.
"Next time," one of them said, "bring fifty more with you."
Next time we will. It should be obvious to most by now, that the
federal, state, and local governments that deal with disasters of this
magnitude are not interested in helping the poor or working people that
are really impacted. Only through class solidarity from other working
people and working together with neighbors and community members will
the people of Greensburg be able to survive and rebuild.
Kansas Mutual Aid is in the midst of organizing a more permanent and
structured relief effort. We are continuing to make contacts to secure a
base camp for our work. We hope to have things organized and solidified
by Memorial Day Weekend when we plan to travel back with as many people,
tools, and supplies we can take.
Our goals are three fold:
1) To provide direct physical relief support to the residents of
Greensburg by being on hand to help salvage their homes, and provide any
other physical support they ask of us.
2) To offer solidarity and aid in any future organizing or agitating
efforts that will be needed to retain possession of their homes, or to
acquire any other physical aid they demand from the government or other
3) To provide support and protection of human rights during the police
and military occupation of the city. We will work to document arrests
and ensure that human rights of arrestees are protected.
If you live in Eastern Kansas, or are willing to travel, we need your
help and experience. We also need a laundry list of supplies including:
Money for fuel for our vehicles
Respirators and filtered face masks
Headlamps and flashlights (none of the city has power, and there are a
lot of basements that will need to be worked in)
Shovels, pickaxes, prybars, crowbars, sledgehammers, and heavy duty rakes
Gloves, boots, goggles, construction helmets and other protective clothing
First Aid supplies
Water and Food (non-perishable) for volunteers heading down
Chainsaws and Gasoline
Portable generators
You and your experience
Please, if you have anything you can offer, or want to help in the
relief, e-mail us at firstname.lastname@example.com
We will be hosting a presentation on Monday May 21st at the Solidarity
Center in downtown Lawrence (1109 Mass Street) at 7pm on our experiences
in Greensburg, and on our plans to offer relief in the form of
solidarity and mutual aid, and not as charity. Please join us if you can.
There seems like there is much more to say, but with the experience
fresh in my mind, it's hard to keep typing. Action and organization is
needed more than a longer essay at this moment.
In love and solidarity,
Dave Strano
Kansas Mutual Aid member
Lawrence, Kansas
11) Court seeks Colombian lawmakers in growing scandal
Mon May 14, 2007 3:39PM EDT
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's Supreme Court on Monday ordered five
congressmen arrested on charges they colluded with paramilitary death
squads in a widening political scandal entangling allies of President
Alvaro Uribe.
Uribe is under fire from critics at home and Democrats in the U.S.
Congress who are skeptical about approving a free trade deal and a
military aid package for Colombia because of suspected ties between
pro-Uribe lawmakers and militia commanders.
Eight congressmen have already been jailed on charges they cooperated
with paramilitary bosses who carried out massacres, murders and
kidnappings in the name of combating guerrillas until they reached a
2003 peace deal with Uribe.
Authorities said the names of five lawmakers appeared on a document
signed with paramilitary leaders in 2001 at the Santa Fe de Ralito
militia stronghold when the commanders took over swathes of
countryside in a counter-insurgency campaign.
"The court's penal chamber has issued warrants for the five lawmakers
accused of signing the Ralito pact. The charge is conspiring to
commit an aggravated crime," Magistrate president Alfredo Gomez told
Uribe's government has received millions in U.S. aid to help fight
rebels who are still battling a four-decade-old conflict fueled by
the cocaine trade. The rebels have been pushed back in the jungles
and Uribe has negotiated the disarming of 30,000 paramilitaries.
Rights groups have long denounced collusion among the paramilitaries,
political leaders and army officers, but the extent of the links is
becoming clearer as militia commanders give testimony about their
crimes as part of their peace deal.
Uribe says the arrests are proof that Colombia's institutions are
working better than ever and demanded authorities support the
investigation. But rights groups say the militia bosses have kept
their criminal networks and influence alive.
Top paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso has promised this week
to give evidence about politicians, army commanders, business leaders
and foreign companies who collaborated with the warlords before their
12) More than 500 citizens of ECUADOR were victims
of massacres in Colombia
By AFP 5/14/2007 07:46 hours
VIA Email from: Greg McDonald
Quito 5/13/2007 – More than 500 Ecuadorians were victims of massacres
by Colombian paramilitaries between 1998 and 2002; their relatives
kept quiet and did not make accusations because they were afraid of
reprisals, the press charged yesterday.
"Hundreds of Ecuadorians disappeared in Colombia," and "mass graves
give clues to relatives of those lost in the border region," headlined
the daily El Universal, in the port city Guayaquil, in southwestern
The paper indicated that, between 1998 and 2002, "more than 500
Ecuadorian campesinos, doctors, professors, merchants working in La
Hormiga, La Dorada, El Tigre, El Placer, San Miguel and other
districts of (the department of) Putumayo in Colombia were victims of
massacres caused by paramilitary groups."
"Family members kept silent and did not make accusations, from fear;
human rights organizations and the Ecuadorian government ignored the
cases," the paper added.
The paper stressed that "hundreds of Ecuadorians (men, women, and
children) traveling or living temporarily in some ten villages in
southern Colombian Putumayo, disappeared as a result of armed action
by paramilitary groups from Colombia."
A week ago, the attorney general of Colombia, Mario Iguarán, revealed
that the remains of Ecuadorian citizens have been found among more
than 100 victims of the paramilitaries in mass graves in Putumayo.
13) For blacks, the folly of the Iraq war hits home
Derrick Z. Jackson, THE BOSTON GLOBE
Monday, May 14, 2007
Military sociologist David R. Segal recently was asked
over the telephone what he hears in his surveys of
soldiers. He quoted an African American veteran of the
Iraq invasion and occupation: "This is not a black
people's war. This is not a poor people's war. This is
an oilman's war."
Gregory Black, a retired Navy diver who last year
started the Web site BlackMilitaryWorld.com, said that
quote sums up what he, too, hears from African
American veterans of Iraq.
"African Americans detest this war," Black said in a
recent phone interview. "Everybody kind of knows the
truth behind this war. It's a cash cow for the
military defense industry, when you look at the money
these contractors are making. African Americans saw
this at the beginning of the war and now the rest of
the country has figured it out. It's not benefiting us
in the least."
Asked about the reference to an "oilman's war," Black
said, "It's basically about oil, basically about
money. It's an economic war." He said veterans say
they are tired and burned out. "Guys are saying we're
halfway around the world fighting people of color
under the guise of democracy and we can't see how it's
benefited anyone," Black said. "It's hard to fight
halfway around the world for people's freedom when
you're not sure you have it at home."
This war, launched under false pretenses, has so
little merit that the enrollment of African Americans
in the military may be at its lowest point since the
creation of the all-volunteer military in 1973. In
2000, 23.5 percent of Army recruits were African
American. By 2005, the percentage dropped to 13.9
percent. National Public Radio quoted a Pentagon
statistic that said that African American propensity
to join the military had dropped to 9 percent.
Technically, 13.9 percent is about the proportion of
African Americans in the general population. But the
military's meritocracy has long been a
disproportionate option for African Americans because
of a lack of career opportunities and decent schools
to prepare them for college.
The drop in African American enrollment in the
military may be as powerful a collective political
statement about Iraq as when Muhammad Ali refused to
be drafted during the Vietnam War. Before the 2003
invasion, polls showed that African American support
for the invasion was as low as 19 percent, according
to the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies, while white support ran between 58 percent
and 73 percent in major polls.
Even today African Americans by far lead the way in
calling the war a mistake. According to Gallup, 85
percent of African Americans say it was a mistake,
compared to 53 percent of white Americans. According
to Pew, a plurality of white Americans, 49 percent,
still say it was the right decision to invade Iraq,
compared with 21 percent of African Americans.
"African Americans are always more sensitive to
anything that smacks of neocolonialism, which this war
did smack of," said Joint Center political analyst
David Bositis.
Segal and Black said that sensitivity has nothing to
do with patriotism. "What we're getting is not an
opposition to war, but considerable opposition to this
war," said Segal, director of the University of
Maryland's Center for Research on Military
Organization. He has done soldier attitude surveys for
the Army. "What we're seeing is a growing resentment
that it feels to them that the military has gone to
war, but not the nation. The military has gone to war,
the nation has gone to Wal-Mart."
Black said he still believes "without a shadow of a
doubt" that the military provides one of the best
opportunities for African Americans to advance in a
nation where civilian opportunities remain checkered.
But he also said the military may underestimate how
young people are absorbing the horrific images in
Iraq's chaos. Pentagon officials largely attribute the
drop in African American interest in the armed forces
to "influencers," parents, coaches, ministers, and
school counselors who urge youth not to enlist.
"I think some of that is true," Black said. "But I
taught ROTC in high school, and the kids themselves
are a lot smarter about this stuff. They see the news
and they can't justify going into a fight for
something they have no faith in."
14) A Statement by William Singletary,
a witness in the case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal (1995 PCRA hearing), is what
follows below. This statement was sent to the
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal, in order that it be read at
rallies held in solidarity with death-
row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on the
day of what likely is his last appeal
hearing--before a panel of the Third
Circuit federal court in Philadelphia,
PA, May 17th 2007.
Singletary says he is perhaps the
only true witness to the events of the
early morning hours of December 9th, 1981,
at 13th and Locust streets in
Philadelphia, at which radio journalist
and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal
was beaten, and fingered by police
for the murder of a police officer.
Singletary was never called to testify
at the rigged and racist charade, which is
sometimes referred to as Mumia's1982 trial.
Singletary insists that Mumia Abu-
Jamal did not even arrive on the scene
until after the officer was shot, and
did not in any way participate in the shooting.
Mumia himself was a victim, having
been shot and then viciously
attacked by white Philadelphia cops.
The hearing on May 17th may be
Mumia's last. It concerns only a few
issues out of a great many outstanding
questions in this case, most of which have
never been heard in court. The evidence
shows that Mumia is innocent, and the
statement below is just one of the many
proofs of that fact. Rallies in
solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal are
being held in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago,
San Francsco and San Jose California,
as well as London, Toronto, Amsterdam,
and others internationally.
(for a photocopy of the original
signed statement, send a request by
email to: firstname.lastname@example.com.)
Statement of William Singletary for
Solidarity Rallies May 17, 2007
My name is William Singletary. I am an eye-witness to the murder or
assassination of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981, in
the early morning hours at 13th and Locust Street in Philadelphia, PA.
Mumia Abu-Jamal did not shoot Daniel Faulkner. I stood as close as 12 to
15 feet when Officer Faulkner was killed. When two bullets were viciously
pumped into Officer Faulkner, the shooter then looked into my direction.
We locked eyes for a few seconds. His stare was like a thousand ice picks
aiming for my heart. I slowly backed up; we never unlocked eyes until he
flung the 22 caliber pistol to the right rear wheel of the Volkswagen.
That's the type of weapon that killed the officer. I saw it and I told the
cops where to retrieve the weapon.
This story has had many twists and turns, according to the police, D.A.,
and prosecutor's office. None of what they stated is true. As I said, I
saw the whole thing as it happened and it was not the way they said. They
concocted a story, and put it on paper and the whole world believed what
they said. I was told to keep quiet by the police, by Mr. Jamal's
attorneys, and people on the street that I had always confided in. No one
wanted to lose their business or their jobs. So I was left alone, by
myself with this burden of "who will listen to me?" In the city of Philly
I was a loner or the "Crazy Nigger" that won't shut up. But when we would
be alone or with some brothers that truly believed that Mumia was
innocent, guided me through turbulent times.
I came through by moving time after time and taking low-paying jobs to
support my family. My family even turned their backs. I lost everything I
owned just for telling the truth.
I never knew people could be so mean; I am talking about professional
people. I watched those cops turn into pure animals when they did their
dance around Mr. Jamal. They beat him and kicked him, spit on him, called
him nigger and violated all of his civil rights. Every one of those cops
on the scene took part in the beating and the little dirty dance they did.
Mr. Jamal cried and begged them to stop because he had been shot, but they
continued to punch, kick, and beat him with their blackjacks until he was
unable to move on his own power. They then picked him up and tried to
split his body on a "No Parking" sign. At this point he was too weak to
say anything. The cops kept chanting, "Ramp, Ramp, Ramp" in reference to
an officer that was slain at an early Move confrontation. This was a
retribution for his reporting of that incident.
I don't know about all the ins and outs of this case. But what I do know
is that Mumia Abu-Jamal did not shoot Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Mr.
Jamal was savagely beaten by the Philadelphia police. The whooping of Mr.
Jamal makes Rodney King's beating look like a picnic. I mean I have
traveled the world, been in a war zone, and come home to witness this
barbaric, savage, animal-like beating of another human being. These are
sworn officers of the law, all white, not one black. They know what I saw
and I've been threatened ever since. Not to the point of bodily harm, but
to the point of the loss of my businesses and all my friends.
When I speak of this I sometimes shiver to think of all the pain he
suffered at the hands of people who were sworn to serve and protect. I
would just like to say I am not crazy or fantasizing about anything. What
I said is the whole truth. I am glad to have you all listen and speak to
whomever to give this man a new trial. I was never called to the first
trial so maybe I will be called to the next one. I am a Vietnam Veteran; I
did receive a purple heart for wounds received in combat. I received an
honorable discharge. I successfully ran legit businesses in Philly before
I was "ran out of town."
Hopefully there is someone within the sound of my voice that can reach out
and help these twenty-five years of hell to be brought to some kind of
closure. As I said and keep saying, "Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man."
I was there and I said what I saw. So please continue to support him
however you may.
Thank you. "Peace brothers and sisters"
William Singletary
15) Deal Is Reached in Senate on Immigration
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID STOUT
May 17, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 17 — Senators from both parties announced
an agreement this afternoon on immigration-reform legislation
that would bring illegal immigrants and their families "out
of the shadows and into the sunshine of American life,"
as Senator Edward M. Kennedy put it.
The bill would provide an opportunity "right away" for
millions of illegal aliens to correct their status, said
Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. It would emphasize
family ties as well as employment skills in weighing how
soon immigrants could become legal residents, he said.
But it would also emphasize improved border security and
would call for "very strong sanctions" against employers
who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, according to
Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania.
Both senators acknowledged that the bill, whose general
terms are agreeable to the White House, is likely to
come under fire both from the political right and the
political left — decried either as "amnesty" or as "not
humanitarian enough," as Mr. Specter said.
Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the bill, however imperfect,
was the best chance in years to secure America's borders,
help millions of people who have been living in fear and
help to eliminate a sad and sorded "underground economy"
in American life.
"Now it's time for action," Mr. Kennedy said. "I've been
around here long enough to know that opportunities like
this don't come very often." (The senator has been in
office 45 years.)
The announcement does not mean that a finished bill is
at hand, because differences between the Senate and House
on the issue must still be worked out. But the accord
in the Senate is nonetheless a giant step toward enactment
of "comprehensive immigration reform," as Mr. Specter
described it. President Bush has used that term repeatedly
to describe the kind of bill he would like to see.
The senators said the system they envision would give weight
to immigrants' education and to job skills deemed helpful
to the economy in deciding whom to admit, using a point
system to evaluate those qualifications. Family ties would
remain an important factor.
The point system is one element of a comprehensive bill
that calls for the biggest changes in immigration law
and policy in more than 20 years. The full Senate plans
to take up the legislation next week.
Although Democrats now control the Senate, the bill
incorporates many ideas advanced in some form by
President Bush. A draft of the legislation says that
Congress intends to "increase American competitiveness
through a merit-based evaluation system for immigrants."
Moreover, it says, Congress will "reduce chain migration"
by limiting the number of visas issued exclusively on
account of kinship.
Democrats insisted, and Republicans agreed, that some points
be awarded to people who had close relatives in the United
States or could perform low-skill jobs for which there
was a high demand.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican
who has been one of the more optimistic negotiators,
said on Wednesday that the legislation "would free up
thousands of green cards in the future for people who
meet our economic needs, while still allowing members
of the nuclear family to come to this country."
Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at
Cornell University, said: "The legislation taking shape
in the Senate represents a major philosophical shift.
It tells the world that we are emphasizing characteristics
that will enhance our global competitiveness, like education
and job skills. We would not rely as much on family
background as we have in the past."
Under the proposal, Mr. Yale-Loehr said, "foreign-born
spouses and minor children of United States citizens could
still get green cards, but foreign-born siblings and adult
children of citizens would be hurt."
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada,
had set a test vote on the proposal for Wednesday, but
he put it off until Monday after learning that the
negotiators were making progress.
Most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now
in the United States would be offered legal status under
the bill, but they would not automatically qualify for
citizenship. Rather, they would have to "touch back" in
their home countries and apply for green cards, like
other immigrants seeking permanent residence in the
United States.
Some conservatives still dislike the idea of a large
legalization program. But Mr. Graham said the bill
struck a realistic balance.
"We are not going to put 12 million people in jail,"
Mr. Graham said. "Nor should we give them an advantage
over those who played by the rules to become citizens."
Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, said
he had doubts about this approach, but said Congress
had to do something because his constituents were telling
him that "they feel they are being overrun with uncontrolled
The legislation also calls for major increases in the Border
Patrol and tougher enforcement at the border and in the workplace.
Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, one of the
negotiators, said he wanted the new point system to be
equitable. "We do not want to create a system that is just
for the wealthiest and most educated immigrants,"
Mr. Salazar said.
16) Clash of Hope and Fear as Venezuela Seizes Land
By SIMON ROMERO
May 17, 2007
URACHICHE, Venezuela — The squatters arrive before dawn
with machetes and rifles, surround the well-ordered rows
of sugar cane and threaten to kill anyone who interferes.
Then they light a match to the crops and declare the
land their own.
For centuries, much of Venezuela's rich farmland has been
in the hands of a small elite. After coming to power in 1998,
and especially after his re-election in December, President
Hugo Chávez vowed to end that inequality, and has been keeping
his promise in a process that is both brutal and legal.
Mr. Chávez is carrying out what may become the largest
forced land redistribution in Venezuela's history, building
utopian farming villages for squatters, lavishing money
on new cooperatives and sending army commando units to
supervise seized estates in six states.
The violence has gone both ways in the struggle, with more
than 160 peasants killed by hired gunmen in Venezuela,
including several here in northwestern Yaracuy State,
an epicenter of the land reform project, in recent years.
Eight landowners have also been killed here.
"The oligarchy is always on the attack and trying to say
you are no good," Mr. Chávez said to squatters in
a televised visit here. "They think they're the owners
of the world."
Mr. Chávez's supporters have formed thousands of state-
financed cooperatives to wrest farms and cattle ranches
from private owners. Landowners say compensation is hard
to obtain. Local officials describe the land seizures
s paving stones on "the road to socialism."
"This is agrarian terrorism encouraged by the state,"
said Fhandor Quiroga, a landowner and head of Yaracuy's
chamber of commerce, pointing to dozens of kidnappings
of landowners by armed gangs in the last two years.
The government says the goal of the nationwide resettlement
is to make better use of idle land and to make Venezuela
less dependent on food imports. New laws allow squatters
to manage and farm land that has now been placed in government
Before the land reform started in 2002, an estimated 5 percent
of the population owned 80 percent of the country's private land.
The government says it has now taken over about 3.4 million
acres and resettled more than 15,000 families.
17) Venezuela Lets Councils Bloom;
Critics Say Chávez Backs Local Bodies to Boost Central Control
By Juan Forero
The Washington Post
May 17, 2007
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Nelly Baric calls herself a Chavista,
a die-hard follower of President Hugo Chávez. Roberto
Naguanagua doesn't, saying he's an opponent of the populist,
nationalist government.
But both Baric and Naguanagua are eagerly participating
in one of Chávez's most far-reaching experiments --
community councils that, with money, government consent
and popular support, could redraw the way government
works in this country. Thousands of councils have been
founded nationwide, and they have made decisions on almost
everything from trash collection to school construction.
Though no one -- not even Chávez -- has said with certainty
just how far community councils will go, many inside and
outside government say the idea is to steer Venezuela away
from municipal councils and mayors and hand funding and
decision-making directly to the people. "If this works,
community councils could bury city hall, but something
better will be born," said Naguanagua, a teacher who,
like Baric, belongs to the council of La Hacienda Maria,
in Caracas, Venezuela's capital.
The councils have been buoyed by success stories in some
neighborhoods and tarnished by cases of corruption and
incompetence in others. But overall, the process of grass-
roots decision-making is providing a street-level view
into how one of Latin America's more intriguing leaders
is trying to bring what he calls "a revolution" to his
"Even with the mistakes, the people are emerging, the
poorest people, occupying spaces that were occupied before
by those blind, hardened classes," José Vicente Rangel,
who was replaced as vice president in January, said in
an interview. "That is the central point of what is happening
in the country."
Some opposition leaders, though, are less certain, suggesting
that the councils could be manipulated by a president who
already has control of the National Assembly, the judiciary,
the state oil company and the country's purse strings.
Leopoldo López, the mayor of the affluent Chacao district
of Caracas, said he and others are concerned that the councils
are designed to usurp funding and political power from the
municipalities, the few remaining entities on the political
map where the opposition remains active. He notes that as
part of a constitutional reform the president is planning,
government specialists have sought to eliminate as many
as 200 of the country's 335 municipalities. The focus on
community councils could speed that process, he said.
"They want to ensure one government, where the central
government controls local government," López said. "They
want to eliminate the middle ground, the governorships,
the mayors."
Teodoro Petkoff, a left-leaning newspaper editor and
a government minister before Chávez came to power, said
giving power to the people through community councils
could be a "magnificent idea."
But Petkoff, a steady critic of the government in the
pages of his irreverent newspaper, Tal Cual, said he does
not trust Chávez to permit the councils to function
independently. He noted that the Soviets tried a similar
experiment, ostensibly to let the people rule directly,
but that it failed miserably as party bosses centralized
"For me, there's no doubt that a man with such hardened
centralized concepts as Chávez will, in a constitutional
reform, eliminate any kind of decentralized process,"
Petkoff said.
Even in the government, some of the more independent-
minded thinkers have concerns. Rigoberto Lanz, a sociologist
and a top adviser in the Ministry of Science and Technology,
said the councils seem to be operating in fits and starts,
without a mechanism for making truly big decisions. And
while the idea would in theory democratize Venezuela,
he said, he wondered whether the councils would not
counteract the administration's hold over government.
"It's a metaphor that may not mean a lot or, on the contrary,
may mean the progressive empowerment of the people," Lanz
said. "But there could be an immediate clash with a counter-
logic that is culturally and structurally in place, and
that's the logic of the state. Meaning, all the people power
is automatically in an anti-state orientation."
In the neighborhoods, it's hard to find anything but
bubbling enthusiasm for the councils.
Council members are elected, and each oversees a committee
that concerns itself with an issue such as education
or health care or youth services. When big decisions are
made, they must be put before a neighborhood assembly
of residents, representing on average about 400 families.
The state provides funding for a wide range of projects.
Organizers are often fervent, using the language of populist
revolution when explaining the inner workings of the councils.
"Our job is to end poverty in all its forms, to contribute
to the strengthening of the Bolivarian Revolution based
in the thinking of El Comandante Chávez," said Rodrigo
Tovar, one such council organizer. "Our job is to take the
message to the most humble and needy people, and that message
is to take happiness to the people."
For Venezuelans in poor barrios -- who felt excluded under
the corrupt power-sharing system that ended with Chávez's
election in 1998 -- the community councils are a means of
empowerment. A December survey released by Latinobarometro,
a Chilean polling firm, found that in all of Latin America,
only Uruguayans had a more favorable view of their democratic
institutions than Venezuelans.
Nancy Peralta, 44, is among those who have reveled in
their new responsibilities in a community council.
Her job is to assist sick or incapacitated residents
of her neighborhood, ensuring that they know which
hospitals or clinics offer certain services, for example.
"I move around!" she said with a broad smile. "I run
and run. I'm even getting a little sick myself. I have
bad knees. There's so much marching around in this
Peralta works in Sucre, a sprawling district of Caracas
that claims to have more community councils than any
other municipality in the country. One of the biggest
council backers here is José Vicente Rangel Avalos, son
of the former vice president and the mayor of Sucre.
He said city governments will continue to provide services
even as community councils expand. But he foresees change
-- and welcomes it.
"That you have to reassess institutions -- of course you
have to reassess," he said. "Why? Because they were created
so many years ago in Venezuela. The city halls go all the
way back to the colonial era."
The idea of change goes over well on the far eastern
side of Caracas, in the neighborhood called La Hacienda
On a hill overlooking the city, a dozen residents who had
just finished work sat around in plastic chairs recently,
talking about governing. Baric, who once worked for a big
U.S. company but now is heavily involved in community work,
ran the meeting with precision.
The chatter was hardly revolutionary -- on this night
it was about how to get neighbors to pick up after their
dogs and how to ensure no one is hurt by monkeys that
somehow got loose. But there was also talk about a sports
complex the group wanted to build and about managing a bank
that would provide loans for all manner of projects.
"Things are working," said Lusitania Borges, a council member.
"The government gave power to the people so they can channel
their concerns and resolve problems. These are problems that
were never fixed by mayors, [municipal] council members and
governors. What happened before was nothing but pure
18) Feds Crack Down on Immigrant Labor Organizers
A series of North Carolina immigration raids
weren't just about deporting undocumented workers
-- they were about busting unions.
By David Bacon
RED SPRINGS, North Carolina (5/10/07) -- To
organizer Eduardo Peña, "the raid was like a
nuclear bomb" - more precisely, a neutron bomb,
that ingenious weapon of the cold war whose
radiation was meant to kill a city's residents,
but leave its buildings standing. After the
immigration raid of January 24 at the Smithfield
pork slaughtering plant in Tar Heel, North
Carolina, the factory was still intact. The
machinery of the production lines was fully
functional, ready to clank and clatter into its
normal motion. But many workers were gone, and
much of the plant lay still.
That day the migra [agents of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, part of the Homeland
Security Department] picked up 21 people, while
trying not to alert the rest of the plant's
laborers. One by one, supervisors went to
Mexicans on the line. You're needed in the front
office, they'd say. The workers would put down
their knives, take off their gloves, and walk
through the cavernous building to the human
resources department. There ICE agents took them
into custody, put them in handcuffs, and locked
them up in a temporary detention area. Later,
they were taken out in vans and sent to
immigration jails as far away as Georgia.
"To keep people from guessing what was up," says
Keith Ludlum, one of the few white workers on the
production floor, "they also called up African
Americans and whites, and told them they had to
take drug tests. If they'd only called Latinos,
people would have known what was happening." If
word had gotten out, hundreds of workers would
undoubtedly have run from the lines. Valuable
meat would have been left to spoil - a day's
production lost. In a plant where 5500 people
slaughter and cut apart 32,000 hogs a day, that's
a lot of money. Keeping the raid secret meant
workers worked to the end of their shift and
Smithfield got its product out.
Eventually the truth came out, however. Parents
didn't show up to collect their kids. "A friend
called me at nine or ten that night, and told me
someone from my town hadn't come home," recalls
Pedro Mendez. "That's when we knew what had
happened. I couldn't sleep that night, knowing
my friends had been picked up. I worried about
my own family."
While Mendez laid awake, word spread to employees
of QSI, the company Smithfield contracts to clean
the blood and gore off the machinery after
midnight. Afraid the migra might still be in the
plant, the cleaning crew didn't show up for their
shift. US Department of Agriculture inspectors
won't allow the lines to start in the morning if
they haven't been hosed down the night before, so
the few production workers who came to work the
next day saw the kill floor taped off with yellow
plastic barriers. With no freshly killed hogs on
the hooks, the rest of the plant had nothing to
The raid's shockwaves swept outwards from the
factory through the barrios of the small Southern
towns around it, leaving behind children missing
mothers or fathers. Parents were afraid to go to
work or send their kids to school. The terror it
inspired dealt a body blow to the plant's
organizing drive as well, just when it was making
real progress. Overcoming ten years of lost
elections and Smithfield's hardball anti-union
campaigns, workers were just beginning to lose
their fear. Fired employees had been rehired
after years of court appeals. Union supporters
were discovering that collective action on the
line was not only possible, but could actually
make conditions better.
That rising consciousness was the raid's biggest
According to many workers, it was intended to
halt those organizing efforts. Mark Lauritsen,
packinghouse director for the United Food and
Commercial Workers, says the Department of
Homeland Security and the company "were worried
about people organizing a union, and the
government said, 'here are the tools to take care
of them.'"
Congress today is poised to give the government
and employers even more such tools for
immigration enforcement. They include not just
the program that led to the Smithfield raid, but
others that could be equally damaging to workers
trying to organize unions, enforce labor
standards or simply fight for their rights. The
STRIVE Act, for instance, introduced this
February, contains provisions that would make
workplace raids more common, and the penalties
against undocumented workers more draconian.
Smithfield isn't alone. Workplaces with union
contracts or organizing drives have been hit by a
wave of immigration enforcement over the last
year. At the CINTAS industrial laundry chain,
400 workers were picked up for deportation from
multiple plants during a national drive by the
hotel union UNITE HERE. In the Woodfin Suites
hotel in Emeryville, California, managers
terminated workers for allegedly being
undocumented, after they tried to enforce the
city's living wage ordinance.
Raids are also being used to pressure Congress to
pass new enforcement and contract worker
programs, like the STRIVE Act. In a Washington DC
press conference following raids on the Swift and
Co. meatpacking plants in November, Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told
reporters they would show Congress the need for
"stronger border security, effective interior
enforcement and a temporary-worker program.''
Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow
businesses that need foreign workers, because
they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs,
to be able to get those workers in a regulated
The events at Smithfield are a window into that
* * *
January's raid was one more incident in a long
history of company efforts to block union
organizing in Tar Heel. In 1994 and 1997
Smithfield workers voted in two union
representation elections, both lost by the United
Food and Commercial Workers. Management used
such extensive intimidation tactics that the
votes were thrown out by the National Labor
Relations Board. This year QSI settled NLRB
charges with that it had threatened workers with
arrest by immigration authorities to dampen union
Smithfield workers are up against, not just a
hostile management, but also a political system
that backs the company up. In 1997 the head of
plant security, Danny Priest, told local sheriffs
he expected violence on election day. Police in
riot gear then lined the walkway into the
slaughterhouse, and workers had to walk past them
to cast their ballots. At the end of the vote
count, union activist Ray Shawn was beaten up
inside the plant. Three years later Priest
became an auxiliary deputy sheriff, and plant
security officers were given the power to arrest
and detain people at work. The company
maintained a holding area for detainees in a
trailer on the property, which workers called the
company jail. (Smithfield gave up its deputized
force and detention center in 2005.)
In 2003 QSI contract workers finally challenged
this atmosphere of fear. According to Julio
Vargas, who worked for the company at the time,
"the wages were very low and we had no medical
insurance. When people got hurt, after being
taken to the office they made them go back to
work and wear pink helmets. We were fed up."
Led by Vargas, the cleaning crew refused to go in
to work. "We started talking to people as they
arrived. Those who were in agreement stopped the
other workers on their line."
The company negotiated, and workers won
concessions. The next week, however, those
identified as ringleaders lost their jobs. "They
fired me because they thought I was one of the
organizers," Vargas recalls. "And I was."
Despite the firings, UFCW organizers understood
the importance of that work stoppage. After the
experiences of 1994 and 97, the UFCW knew the
government couldn't and wouldn't guarantee an
election without union busters, labor law
violations, and a campaign of psychological
warfare. The NLRB did force Smithfield to rehire
Keith Ludlum last year, and pay $1.1 million to
workers fired for union activity. Ludlum had lost
his job in 1994, however, over 12 years before.
For his coworkers on the line, the lesson was
that Smithfield lawyers kept a union supporter
out of work for over a decade, in violation of
federal law.
Today the UFCW supports the Employee Free Choice
Act, which would increase penalties for companies
who fire workers for union activity and make it
easier to organize. Until the law is changed,
however, like most unions it seeks ways to
organize workers without labor board elections.
Justice for Janitors or the United Farm Workers'
grape boycott have become models for this kind of
non-NLRB strategy.
Three years ago the UFCW hired Peña, and other
experienced organizers to develop a similar plan.
The union set up a workers' center in nearby Red
Springs, holding classes in English and labor
rights. "This has not been a traditional
campaign," explains Peña. "We're not going to
give the company a chance to use union busters.
We're asking workers to take direct action on the
plant floor to improve their own conditions."
Vargas and other fired workers went to work for
the union, helping organize discontent over high
line speed, and its human cost in workplace
Their non-NLRB strategy requires much more from
supporters than just signing a union
authorization card, voting on election day, or
even going to a few meetings. People have to
lose enough of their fear to show open support,
to circulate petitions demanding changes, and to
form delegations confronting supervisors and
managers. At Smithfield, workers even stopped
production lines to get the company to talk with
them about health and safety problems.
Immigration status itself became an issue for
collective action. Last spring, as immigrant
protests spread across the country, 300
Smithfield workers stayed out of work on April
10, the first day of national demonstrations.
Instead they marched through the streets of
Then, on May 1, when immigrants from Los Angeles
to New York boycotted their jobs on May Day,
Smithfield workers paraded with thousands of
Latinos In Lumberton, North Carolina. Most of
the plant's immigrant workers were used to the
idea of demonstrating on May Day, a working-class
holiday in their countries of origin. According
to Gene Bruskin, director of the UFCW's Justice
at Smithfield campaign, "the company tried to
convince them to come to work, saying it would
provide a place to write letters to Congress
urging immigration reform. But when May Day
arrived, only a skeleton crew showed up for
work." Smithfield took no action against those
who were absent.
* * *
Company representatives declined to be
interviewed for this article. But it's not hard
to imagine that managers might have looked at the
marches and the rising wave of collective
activity with trepidation. In late spring or
early summer Smithfield enrolled in the IMAGE
program - the ICE Mutual Agreement between
Government and Employers.
A July 26 press release from the Department of
Homeland Security calls IMAGE a program "designed
to build cooperative relationships between
government and businesses to strengthen hiring
practices and reduce the unlawful employment of
illegal aliens." Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff says the government "must
partner with employers, educate them and provide
them with the tools they need to develop a
stable, legal workforce."
The program requires employers to verify the
immigration status of all employees, checking
their documents against the ICE database.
Employers must "establish protocols for
responding to no-match letters from the Social
Security Administration," and "establish a tip
line for employees to report violations and
mechanisms for companies to self-report
violations to ICE." Peña says bitterly, "they
saw an opportunity. With the organizing going
on, they knew they could use it. They may not
have expected the loss [the day after the raid],
but it was probably worth it. They achieved
their goal."
The IMAGE program, and other ICE workplace raids,
are designed to enforce employer sanctions, a
provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and
Control Act that prohibits employers from hiring
undocumented workers. In reality, the law makes
it a federal crime for someone without
immigration papers to work. In the long record
of enforcement actions over the last 20 years,
few employers have ever paid fines, much less
gone to jail for violations. Thousands of
workers, however, have lost their jobs.
Smithfield workers saw the first effects of
cooperation between ICE and their employer on
October 30, 2006. The human resources department
sent letters to hundreds, saying the Social
Security numbers they'd provided when they were
hired didn't match the Social Security
Administration database. The letters gave people
15 days to supply valid numbers, and said they'd
be terminated if they didn't.
"Human resources called me on November 8," says
Pedro Mendez, "and said my Social Security number
was bad. I told them I'd been working for nine
years with that number, and asked them why they'd
never said anything about it before. They knew I
couldn't verify it, and they fired me the same
day. They called security to throw me out of the
plant. It was very humiliating."
Mendez asked to see a copy of the no-match letter
from SSA listing his name, and says they refused
to show it to him. If the company did have such
a letter, it would have contained a paragraph
cautioning Smithfield not to construe a
discrepancy in numbers as evidence of lack of
immigration status. Labor and immigrant-rights
activists forced the SSA to include this crucial
paragraph a decade ago. Employers are required
only to advise workers they've received the
SSA writes to thousands of businesses every year,
listing the names of hundreds of thousands of
people whose numbers don't jibe. A worker's
Social Security number might not match government
records for many reasons - the government's
database is notoriously full of errors. But
millions of people in the United States without
immigration documents have had to use a
nonexistent number, or one that belongs to
another person, to get a job. So despite the
letter's warning, the government uses no-match
letters as a form of immigration law enforcement.
Last fall, the Bush administration proposed a new
regulation to make termination mandatory for
anyone listed in a no-match letter. Today there
is no such requirement. Bush's proposed
regulation is also contained in the recently
introduced STRIVE Act. Both Bush and the Act
also call for criminal penalties for people using
false Social Security numbers to get jobs, and
would require employers to check job applicants
against a new Federal database. To implement
these measures, all people in the U.S. would have
to carry some form of national ID.
The STRIVE Act also links increased enforcement
to proposals for guest workers - contract workers
recruited to come to the U.S. by employers.
About 400,000 workers each year would be given
visas requiring them to remain employed in order
to stay in the country. Even current
undocumented immigrants would have to sign up for
temporary-visa schemes. These guest worker
programs have been pushed since the late 1990s by
the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, an
association of the 40 largest manufacturing and
trade groups in the US, which includes the
American Meat Institute. Smithfield belongs to
the AMI.
Current guest worker programs, like the bracero
program of the 1950s, have been widely condemned
for abusing and exploiting immigrants. The
immigration reform proposals now in Congress,
therefore, depend on sanctions, no-match letters
and workplace raids to force guest workers to
stay in them. Without such increased
enforcement, people unhappy with abuse might be
tempted to walk away.
* * *
It's not as though current law is much protection
for immigrant workers, however. Employers aren't
supposed to use no-match letters and document
checks to punish workers for demanding their
rights. Marielena Hincapie, staff attorney for
the National Immigration Law Center, even says
the practice violates section 274-B of the
Immigration and Nationality Act.
That didn't save Pedro Mendez' job, however.
What did, at least for a while, was the
collective action organizers kept pushing. "On
November 13 [2006] the time given workers to come
up with new numbers started to expire," recalls
Peña. "By that time, a couple of hundred people
had received letters. Over 30 were escorted out
of the plant, and those still at work could see
new workers hired to replace them. Many felt
they had nothing to lose. On Thursday [November
16] they walked out."
Taken by surprise, supervisors and even corporate
Vice-president Larry Johnson tried to talk people
into going back to work. None did. That evening
a group of workers met at a local hotel, and came
up with a list of demands. "They decided to
stick to the issue of immigration," Peña says.
"Their idea was to go back in with something that
would protect them, and show other workers the
power of collective action."
At the request of the workers, representatives of
the local Catholic diocese met with the company
the following day, and Smithfield agreed to a
60-day extension, to rehire those already
terminated, and not to retaliate against anyone.
Mendez, who went out to the plant when he heard
about the work stoppage, was among those rehired.
"Even the English-speaking workers were excited
by what had happened," Peña remembers. "It's
hard to imagine how empowered people felt. This
wasn't some leaflet, it was the real thing."
In December, however, ICE carried out raids at
five Swift and Co. plants, detaining over a
thousand workers for deportation. Meatpacking
workers in companies like Smithfield began to
fear the same fate. Nevertheless, the feeling of
collective strength in the plant was still high.
African American union supporters asked the
company to give employees the day off on the
birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Tar
Heel workforce is about half Latino, 40% African
American, and 10% white and Native American.
The week before the proposed holiday, a
delegation of workers went to the human resources
office, bearing petitions with the signatures of
over 4000 people. Peña says Larry Johnson
refused to accept them, arguing the company
couldn't cancel the lunch trucks contracted to
sell food to workers.
Despite the refusal, about 400 workers from the
first shift didn't come to work on King's
birthday. Bruskin says this slowed down the
livestock-handling department, where the animals
are first taken into the plant, an area where
African Americans are concentrated. The same
thing happened on the second shift, he says,
although the company disputes this in at article
in an industry newsletter, Meatpacking.com.
Nine days after the January 15 action ICE agents
came out to the plant.
According to Meatingplace.com, ICE gave the
company advance notice the day before. Agents
arrived with a list of workers, and company
supervisors escorted them to the room where the
migra was waiting. "We didn't want to do
anything to upset our employees," Smithfield
spokesperson Dennis Pittman told Meatingplace.com
reporter Tom Johnston. Later the company
announced it would run the plant the following
Saturday, to make up for the production lost the
day after the raid. Keith Ludlum says he heard
the company on the radio on Thursday, asking
people to come back to work.
The no-match terminations and the immigration
raid made workers feel insecure and fearful for
their jobs, without any need for Smithfield to
violate the National Labor Relations Act.
"People are very scared now," says Julio Vargas.
"They're afraid of more raids, and more checks of
Social Security numbers. People with ten years
at work are thinking of quitting. It's hard to
get them to come to meetings now."
According to Vargas, people see immigration
enforcement as a kind of reprisal. "They think
it's happening because people were getting
organized," he says. To Ludlum, "it totally set
us back. We spent a lot of time educating
people, and now they're getting rid of lots of
According to Peña, "it takes years of convincing,
of educating people, to develop this kind of
trust and activity. The union has become part of
the community, and backs up what workers want to
do. People went from feeling they had no rights
to looking their foremen in the eye. Immigrants
in particular were taking bolder actions even
than citizens."
The raids and firings hit at the heart of this
effort. "Now people are concerned about basic
survival," he says. "The message they've gotten
is that they're nothing. They can be taken from
their families, arrested and deported at any
time. They wonder who will take care of their
kids if the government comes for them. It's hard
to think about workplace injuries if that's the
big question on your mind."
The union, however, is turning the tables, and
using the violation of workers' rights to
mobilize customer pressure against the company.
Bruskin and a crew of community organizers have
focused on the Harris Teeter store chain,
collecting thousands of signatures on petitions
asking managers to find another pork supplier.
At the end of March, religious and human rights
leaders demonstrated outside 24 Harris Teeter
stores across North and South Carolina, Virginia
and Tennessee.
The union and the North Carolina Council of
Churches has also asked the Food Network's Paula
Deen, noted cook of Southern cuisine, to sever
her relationship as a Smithfield spokesperson.
"We'll get there," Peña vows. "We'll finish this."
Meanwhile, in the plant and the small communities
around it, rebuilding will take time and
patience. Those who have lost their jobs have to
find a way to survive. In February Pedro Mendez
was fired for the second and final time. Since
his termination, he and his three children,
Hector, Adan and Eva, all depend on the income of
his wife, who's still working. "It's very hard
now to support our family," he says, "and I worry
about our future. The law is very hard here."
For images of Smithfield workers:
See also The Children of NAFTA (University of
California, 2004)
and the photodocumentary on indigenous migration
to the US, Communities Without Borders (Cornell
University/ILR Press, 2006)
David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
19) The Department of Defense -- Bringing Historical
Revisionism to a High School Near You
By Chris Rodda Sun May 13, 2007 at 11:25:30 AM EST
In his book What If America Were A Christian Nation Again?,
D. James Kennedy presents the following inaccurate explanation
of Thomas Jefferson's famous "wall of separation" letter --
an explanation concocted decades ago to make the reason for
Jefferson's letter fit the notion that what he meant by this
phrase was a one-way wall to keep the government out of the
church, but not the church out of the government, and that
the only thing the Establishment Clause was intended to prevent
was the establishment a national religion.
"...Late in 1801, while he was president, he received
a letter from the Association of Baptists in Danbury,
Connecticut, who were concerned about the threat of the
newly formed federal government. This `leviathan,' they
feared, could become a great danger to their Christian
faith and to their churches."
"...On the first day of the year 1802, Jefferson wrote
back to the Danbury Baptists. In this letter, he said that
he was greatly impressed that the American people, through
the First Amendment had, in effect, erected a `wall of
separation between the church and the state,' so the Baptists
didn't need to fear that the federal government was going
to intrude upon their religion or in any way disturb their
This sort of historical revisionism might be expected in
homeschools and at Christian high schools, such as D. James
Kennedy's own Westminster Academy, and the spreading of it
by these means is bad enough. But now, bit by bit, this
same historical revisionism is making its way into our
public schools. I've already written extensively about
how this is being accomplished via the National Council
On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools (NCBCPS) course. The
NCBCPS, however, is not the only source of bad history in
our public high schools. There is another, which, unlike
the NCBCPS, is not produced by a private organization, but
by the Department of Defense -- for the JROTC program.
Unit 6 of the JROTC core curriculum is entitled Citizenship
and American History. The following appears in Chapter 3
of this unit, "You the People -- The Citizen Action Group
Process," a chapter designed to teach the cadets how to work
as a group to make decisions and resolve issues by voting,
reaching a consensus, deciding on a plan of action, etc.,
first in "small group meetings," and then as part of
a larger "representative group session."
(I have not yet had an opportunity to view the video mentioned
in this excerpt from the textbook, but will be doing
so as soon as possible.)
Before the first small group meeting, it is recommended
that you view the You the People Video. It is a three part
series on citizenship.
The video also contains segments that refer to the
separation between church and state. Please review the
following for one perspective on that topic.
(by Jim Rice as adapted from Separation of Church
and State by David Barton)
The "separation of church and state" phrase was taken
from an exchange of private letters between President
Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury,
Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President.
It is not found in any governmental American document.
The inclusion of protection for the "free exercise
of religion" in the constitution suggested to the Danbury
Baptists that the right of religious expression was
government given and therefore the government might
someday attempt to regulate religious expression. Jefferson
shared their concern. He believed along with the other
Founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only
to prevent the federal establishment of a national
denomination. He assured them that they need not fear;
that the federal government would never interfere with
the free exercise of religion.
In summary, the "separation" phrase so frequently
invoked today was rarely mentioned by any of the Founders;
and even Jefferson's explanation of his phrase is diametrically
opposed to the manner in which courts apply it today.
"Separation of church and state" currently means almost
exactly the opposite of what it originally meant.
Before even getting to the historical inaccuracy of the
Barton explanation of Jefferson's letter, and disregarding
the disturbing fact that anything by Barton appears in an
official Department of Defense history text being used
in our high schools, I think an important question needs
to be asked. Why is the issue of separation between church
and state in this chapter in the first place? The lessons
in this chapter teach the cadets to decide on a position
on an issue by majority rule, and then form a plan to promote
that position. This is appropriate for the other examples
that follow in the textbook, such as whether or not the
voting age should be lowered to sixteen, but to foster
the notion that a fundamental principle like church/state
separation is subject to majority rule is incredible.
To present what is described as "one perspective"
on this issue when that "perspective" is based on
inaccurate history is beyond incredible.
My first post here at Talk To Action, which I wrote in
February to mark the 60th anniversary of Everson v. Board
of Education, the case that popularized the phrase
"separation of church and state," explained the real
reason the Danbury Baptists wrote to Jefferson, a reason
that, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, is changed
in the religious right version of American history in order
to fit the one-way wall idea.
The following is essentially a repeat of what I posted back
in February, copied here for those who want to read the real
story behind Jefferson's letter and compare it to the version
found in the JROTC text:
In order to understand Jefferson's letter to the Danbury
Baptists, it is essential to understand the letter he was
replying to, and, in order to understand that letter,
a little knowledge about history of the government of
Connecticut is necessary, so that's where I'm going
to start.
Connecticut, nicknamed the Constitution State, was actually
one of the last of the original thirteen states to adopt
a state constitution - over forty years after declaring
itself a state. What the nickname refers to is the Fundamental
Orders of 1638-1639. Because this was the first document
written in the colonies by a representative body to form
a government, it is considered by many to be the first state
constitution. The Fundamental Orders established a form
of government for Connecticut that would continue with
little change for the next 180 years.
In 1660, when news of the restoration of the monarchy
in England reached the colonies, Connecticut's General
Court, aware that the new king, Charles II, was not a big
fan of Congregationalists, became concerned about the fact
that their colony had never been granted an official charter.
A charter was quickly drafted, and the colony's governor,
John Winthrop, Jr., sailed to England to present it to
the Privy Council. Winthrop's mission was successful,
and the charter was officially adopted by the General
Court on October 9, 1662. Although this charter had almost
no effect on the existing government of Connecticut, it is
considered by some to be the state's second constitution.
Around the time of the American Revolution, all of the
states, with the exception of Connecticut and Rhode
Island, adopted state constitutions. These constitutions,
written at the suggestion of the Continental Congress,
were necessary because these states would need new
governments once they were independent from England.
Connecticut and Rhode Island, however, both of which
already had functioning governments that would not be
affected when ties to England were severed, saw no need
to write state constitutions at this time. In 1776,
the Connecticut General Assembly (formerly the General
Court) declared:
That the ancient form of civil government contained
in the Charter from Charles the II, King of England, and
adopted by the people of this state, shall be and remain
the civil constitution of this state, under the sole
authority of the people hereof, independent of any
king or prince whatever.
So, with the exception of deleting any references to
England in the Charter, there was no change to the
government of Connecticut.
By 1800, all of the other states had made significant
progress towards religious freedom. Not every state
had the liberal freedom enjoyed in states like Pennsylvania
and Virginia, but none had the degree of religious
discrimination practiced in Connecticut. The Congregationalist
government of Connecticut, established by the Fundamental
Orders in 1638-1639, legitimized by the Charter of 1662,
and left unchanged at the time of the Revolution, was the
government that still existed on October 7, 1801, when
the Danbury Baptist Association wrote the following
letter to President Thomas Jefferson.
Sir, Among the many million in America and Europe who
rejoice in your election to office; we embrace the first
opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity,
since your inauguration, to express our great satisfaction,
in your appointment to the chief magistracy in the United
States: And though our mode of expression may be less
courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their
addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe that none
are more sincere.
Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious
liberty-that religion is at all times and places a matter
between God and individuals-that no man ought to suffer
in name, person, or effects on account of his religious
opinions-that the legitimate power of civil government
extends no further than to punish the man who works ill
to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government
is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law
made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis
of our government, at the time of our revolution; and
such had been our laws and usages, and such still are;
that religion is considered as the first object of
legislation; and therefore what religious privileges
we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as
favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and
these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading
acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights
of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore;
if those who seek after power and gain under the
pretense of government and religion should reproach
their fellow men-should reproach their order magistrate,
as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because
he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of
Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.
Sir, we are sensible that the president of the
United States is not the national legislator, and also
sensible that the national government cannot destroy
the laws of each state; but our hopes are strong that
the sentiments of our beloved president, which have
had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams
of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these
states and all the world, till hierarchy and tyranny
be destroyed from the earth. Sir, when we reflect on
your past services, and see a glow of philanthropy
and good will shining forth in a course of more than
thirty years we have reason to believe that America's
God has raised you up to fill the chair of state out
of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which
you preside over. May God strengthen you for your
arduous task which providence and the voice of the
people have called you to sustain and support you
enjoy administration against all the predetermined
opposition of those who wish to raise to wealth and
importance on the poverty and subjection of the people.
And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil
and bring you at last to his heavenly kingdom through
Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator.
Signed in behalf of the association,
Nehemiah Dodge Ephraim Robbins Stephen S. Nelson
The biggest myth about this letter, the myth promoted
in the JROTC curriculum, is that the Baptists wrote it
because they feared that the federal government planned
to establish a national religion, a notion that is
ridiculous for several reasons. The most obvious of these
is that the letter refers only to the problem in Connecticut
- that the state was still governed by it's "ancient charter"
and the laws of their state's established religion. The
"degrading acknowledgements" referred to in the second
paragraph of the letter, for example, were the certificates
required to exempt those of other religions from paying
taxes to support the Congregationalist church. By this
time, Connecticut law did allow non-Congregationalists
of certain denominations to have their religious taxes
go to their own churches, but the process of obtaining
and filing the necessary exemption certificate was made
as difficult and demeaning as possible. The Baptists
mention nothing whatsoever about a fear of the federal
government establishing a national religion. The myth
that they were writing to Jefferson for a reassurance
that this couldn't happen is clearly contradicted by
the third paragraph of the letter. This paragraph clearly
shows that the Baptists fully understood the First Amendment
and the limitations of the federal government's power. When
they wrote "our constitution of government is not specific,"
they were referring to their state's constitution of government,
not the federal Constitution. While they knew that Jefferson
would be sympathetic to their situation, they also knew that
he was powerless to do anything about it.
So, if the Baptists knew Jefferson had no power to help them,
why did they even bother to mention the problem with their
state government and its religious establishment? Jefferson's
election and the ousting of the Federalist administration
on the national level had given the Baptists hope that
change was also possible in their state. The Baptists
as well as other minority denominations in Connecticut
were growing in numbers. If all of these religious
dissenters joined the Republicans in Connecticut, the
combination might become a political force capable of
overthrowing their state's Federalist, Congregationalist
government. While the religious dissenters and the
Republicans had somewhat different priorities, they both
had the same goals -- a truly representative government
and a real state constitution.
The following, dated January 1, 1802, was Jefferson's
reply to the Baptist Association's letter:
Gentlemen The affectionate sentiments of esteem
and approbation which you are so good as to express
towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association,
give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate
a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my
constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded
of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them
becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which
lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account
to none other for his faith or his worship, that the
legitimate powers of government reach actions only,
& not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence
that act of the whole American people which declared
that their legislature should "make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation
between Church & State. Adhering to this expression
of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the
rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction
the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore
to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural
right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection
& blessing of the common father and creator of man,
and tender you for yourselves & your religious association,
assurances of my high respect & esteem.
One of the biggest misconceptions promoted in religious
right American history books is that Jefferson's reply
to the Baptists was a personal letter and/or a hastily
scribbled note that he put little thought into. This is
simply not true. The existing copy of the letter is
actually Jefferson's first draft, not the final letter.
Just the fact that he wrote a first draft proves that
this was not a hastily scribbled note. Jefferson then
submitted his draft to two different New Englanders
in his administration, Postmaster General Gideon Granger
of Connecticut and Attorney General Levi Lincoln of
Massachusetts, requesting their opinions on how it would
be received in their states. Obviously, Jefferson did
not consider this a personal letter to the Baptist
Association. He was well aware of the likelihood that
such a letter would be made public, and did not want
to offend any New England political allies. On the
advice of Levi Lincoln, Jefferson deleted a paragraph
explaining his refusal to proclaim days of thanksgiving,
writing the following reason in the margin.
paragraph was omitted on the suggestion that it might
give uneasiness to some of our republican friends in the
eastern states where the proclamation of thanksgivings
etc. by their Executives is an antient habit & is
A common question about Jefferson's letter has to do
with what government he was referring to. Was it the
federal government or the state governments? The correct
answer would have to be both. In his letter, Jefferson
described the First Amendment's establishment and free
exercise clauses as an "expression of the supreme will
of the nation," clearly referring to the federal government.
His next sentence, however, doesn't make much sense unless
he was referring to the "progress of those sentiments" in
the individual states, especially given the fact that he
was replying to a letter regarding the lack of religious
freedom in one particular state. He couldn't have been
referring to the "progress of those sentiments" in the
federal government because no progress was necessary
there -- the First Amendment had already taken care
of that. While the federal government couldn't do anything
to speed up this progress in the states, Jefferson wrote
that he would "see with sincere satisfaction the progress"
when it was made. In Connecticut, the kind of progress
Jefferson was talking about would take another sixteen
Connecticut did eventually progress from almost complete
intolerance to a degree of religious freedom on par with
the other states. When the original commonwealth was
formed in the 1630s, the law was simple - religions
other than Congregationalism were just not allowed.
In the early 1700s, it appeared that progress was
being made. The law preventing Quakers from settling
in Connecticut was repealed in 1702. In 1708, the
General Assembly passed the Toleration Act, which
allowed some privileges to certain government approved
dissenting religions. These laws, however, were not
were not a result of the Congregationalists becoming
more tolerant, but the result of the Congregationalists'
fear of royal disfavor. England's Parliament had passed
an act of religious toleration in 1689, and, although
the Charter of 1662 hadn't changed the laws of the
state, it did include a condition that Connecticut's
laws could not be in conflict with the laws of England.
The General Assembly was aware that Queen Anne had
received complaints of intolerance from the Quakers
and, more importantly, the Connecticut Anglicans.
Things started to change during the Great Awakening
of the 1740s. Separatist Congregational churches
began to split off from the established parish
churches. This was seen as a such a tremendous threat
that, in 1743, the General Assembly repealed the
Toleration Act in an attempt to prevent these churches
from organizing. This continued until the 1770s, when
the separatists were granted a status similar to other
government approved religions like the Baptists and
the Quakers. This meant that worship in their churches
was now considered to meet the legal requirement of
attendance at a government recognized church. The
separatists could no longer be fined for neglecting
worship, but, like the Baptists, they had to pay taxes
to the Congregational Church unless they filed an
exemption certificate. Other denominations, such as
the Anglicans and Episcopalians (the ones with money),
had become somewhat more accepted, and had even gained
a small representation in the government.
Prior to 1801, Federalist candidates in Connecticut
were rarely contested. This was due, in large part,
to the complete lack of secrecy in the voting process.
Local elections, held at town meetings, pretty much
forced the voters to vote for Federalist candidates
or risk being branded troublemakers. Voters were given
pieces of paper. One by one, the names of the candidates
were read from a list. A voter would hand in one of
their pieces of paper when the name of the candidate
they wanted to vote for was called off. By always
listing the Federalist candidates first, it was obvious
that anyone still holding a piece of paper after all the
Federalists' names had been called hadn't voted for
a Federalist. In 1801, the first Republican candidates
for Governor and Lieutenant Governor appeared on the ballot.
The Republicans received only a small fraction of the vote,
and only 33 of 200 seats in the Assembly, but the Federalists
considered this enough of a threat to change the election
process to further discourage Republican candidates.
Up until this time, although the actual vote was far
from secret, the nomination process had been done by
secret ballot. In 1801 the law was changed to make
nominations public as well.
The big campaign issue in the elections of the early
1800s was that Connecticut still did not have a
constitution. As already mentioned, both the Republicans
and the religious dissenters wanted a constitution,
albeit for different reasons.The Republican priorities
were separation of powers and expanded suffrage; the
religious dissenters' priority was disestablishment
of the Congregational church. The Republicans gained
even more support when the War of 1812 ended. Funds
for the war had been raised through imposing internal
taxes. When the conflict was over, the U.S. Treasury
had a large surplus and returned this money to the
states. By giving a disproportionately large amount
of this money to the Congregationalists, and little
or nothing to the other denominations, the General
Assembly alienated the Episcopalians. The Republicans
now had the support of this large minority, which
then comprised about ten percent of the population.
The potential of religious dissenters combining with
Jefferson's Republican party, which the Baptists had
seen 16 years earlier, had became a reality. In 1817,
with Oliver Wolcott running for Governor and Jonathan
Ingersoll, an Episcopalian, for Lieutenant Governor,
the Republicans narrowly defeated the Federalists.
In the next election, the Federalists lost their
majority in the Assembly. In August and September
of 1818, Connecticut held its constitutional
Although he was powerless to help the Connecticut Baptists
in 1801, Thomas Jefferson did eventually "see with sincere
satisfaction" the disestablishment of the Congregationalist
Church. Upon hearing of the Republican victory in the
Connecticut election of 1817, Jefferson expressed this
satisfaction in a letter to John Adams.
I join you therefore in sincere congratulations that
this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and
that a protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace the
American history and character.
Full discussion: story/2007/5/13/112530/361
20) Analysis Finds Large Antarctic Area Has Melted
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
May 16, 2007
While much of the world has warmed in a pattern that scientists
have linked with near certainty to human activities, the
frigid interior of Antarctica has resisted the trend.
Now, a new satellite analysis shows that at least once in the
last several years, masses of unusually warm air pushed
to within 310 miles of the South Pole and remained long enough
to melt surface snow across a California-size expanse.
The warm spell, which occurred over one week in 2005,
was detected by scientists from the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory of NASA and the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Balmy air, with a temperature of up to 41 degrees in some
places, persisted across three broad swathes of West
Antarctica long enough to leave a distinctive signature
of melting, a layer of ice in the snow that cloaks the
vast ice sheets of the frozen continent. The layer formed
the same way a crust of ice can form in a yard in winter when
a warm day and then a freezing night follow a snowfall,
the scientists said.
The evidence of melting was detected by a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite, the
QuickScat, that uses radar to distinguish between
snow and ice as it scans the surfaces of Greenland
and Antarctica.
There have been other areas in Antarctica where such melt
zones have been seen, but they are not common so far inland,
said Son Nghiem, a scientist at the NASA laboratory who
directed the analysis with Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist
at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Some melting also occurred at an elevation of more than
6,000 feet, in regions where temperatures usually remain
far below freezing year-round.
It is too soon to know whether the warm spell was a fluke
or a portent, Dr. Nghiem said.
"It is vital we continue monitoring this region to determine
if a long-term trend may be developing," he said.
Dr. Steffen said if such conditions intensified or persisted
for a long time, the melting could conceivably produce
streams of water that could, as has been measured in Greenland,
percolate down to bedrock and allow the thick ice sheets
coating the continent to slide a bit faster toward the sea.
21) Citing Racist Bias, Attorneys for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Urge a Federal Appeals Court to Grant the Former Black
Panther a New Trial
Friday, May 18th, 2007
VIA Email from: Mike Friedman
Attorney Robert Bryan says a racist judge and racist jury practices
contributed to the sentencing of Abu-Jamal to death row. Bryan joins us in
New York one day after he argued before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Philadelphia. [includes rush transcript] For our first segment,
we turn to Philadelphia and a pivotal court hearing for the imprisoned
journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal has spent
a quarter-century on death row. He was convicted of killing a police
officer following a controversial trial before a predominantly white jury.
In 2001, a judge overturned Abu-Mumia's death sentence but upheld his
conviction. On Thursday, a three-judge panel heard oral arguments to
decide whether Mumia gets a new trial, life in prison without parole, or
execution. Hundreds of people packed the courtroom while an even larger
crowd rallied in support of Mumia outside. A decision may not come down
for months.
We are joined now by Mumia Abu-Jamal's lead attorney. Robert Bryan has
represented Mumia since 2003. He is a fellow of the American Board of
Criminal Lawyers and the former Chair of the National Coalition to Abolish
the Death Penalty.
JUAN GONZALEZ: For our first segment, we turn to Philadelphia and a
pivotal court hearing for the imprisoned journalist and the former Black
Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal has spent a quarter-century on death
row. He was convicted of killing a police officer following a
controversial trial before a predominantly white jury. In 2001, a judge
overturned Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, but upheld his conviction. On
Thursday, a three-judge panel heard oral arguments to decide whether Mumia
gets a new trial, life in prison without patrol, or execution. Hundreds of
people packed the courtroom, while an even larger crowd rallied in support
of Mumia outside. A decision may not come down for months.
AMY GOODMAN: We're joined right now by Mumia Abu-Jamal's lead attorney.
Robert Bryan has represented Mumia since 2003. He's a fellow of the
American Board of Criminal Lawyers and the former chair of the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Welcome to Democracy Now!
ROBERT BRYAN: It's a pleasure to be here, Amy
AMY GOODMAN: Why don't you lay out what happened in the courtroom for --
what was it? -- two hours yesterday?
ROBERT BRYAN: Well, it was over two hours. We argued before a three-judge
panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which
is just below the US Supreme Court. The court seemed really interested.
There are a number of issues pending before this court. They involve the
death penalty, racism in jury selection, the racism and bias of the trial
judge, Sabo, who referred to my client during the trial, to use his words
-- I'm quoting him -- "I'm going to help them fry the nigger,‰ referring
to Mumia Abu-Jamal.
AMY GOODMAN: Who heard that?
ROBERT BRYAN: Pardon?
AMY GOODMAN: Who heard that?
ROBERT BRYAN: A court stenographer. It was just outside the courtroom. She
was going with her judge to another courtroom, and they passed Judge Sabo
in an antechamber adjacent to the courtroom where the trial occurred, and
Sabo started talking about the trial and made those comments, which are as
offense as -- I mean, as you may know, I specialize in death penalty
litigation. I've handled hundreds of death penalty trials and cases in
post-conviction proceedings in the past three decades. I even went and
spent three days in jail in a murder case for contempt of court, in which
my client was acquitted -- African American. I've seen a lot of racism,
but I've never heard anything like that, except in this case in
Philadelphia. It's unprecedented.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And that court stenographer's statement, has it ever gone
before a judge on this case?
ROBERT BRYAN: Juan, it went before the court yesterday. I said -- from my
lips -- and I said, "Understand, these are the words of Judge Sabo, not
Robert R. Bryan.‰ But our focus yesterday is interesting, with all the
energy by the prosecution to kill my client. The focus yesterday was on
constitutional crimes committed by the prosecution. What the whole focus
was primarily was on the death penalty, I'd say 20% and 80% on racism in
the District Attorney's office of Philadelphia. And in all of my years of
doing this kind of work, I find yesterday's hearing, as I think back on it
this morning, as unprecedented. These judges, how they'll rule, we do not
know, but they were very troubled -- that was very clear -- about the
racism in this case.
JUAN GONZALEZ: One of the main points that you were raising was the jury
selection process in the original trial, right?
ROBERT BRYAN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The number of challenges of potential white jurors versus
black jurors. Could you talk about that?
ROBERT BRYAN: Yes. The US Supreme Court has been very clear in recent
years, beginning with a 1986 decision, that racism in jury selection
offends the US Constitution. And in this case, the prosecutor used over
two-thirds of his strikes to remove people of color, African Americans,
only 20% to 25% white people. I mean, you know, you have all of these
African American people removed and very few white people. And it's
well-documented that the District Attorney's office of Philadelphia during
that period in the early '80s, and certainly going back, were very active
in employing racism in jury selection discrimination. And the big question
yesterday, in my words, was -- an issue for the court was and is -- was
race, was discrimination at work in this case? And it seems like not only
the statistics, but a wealth of other evidence, certainly seems to
establish that. Let's just hope that the judges agree with us.
22) "Sicko" Is Completed and We're Off to Cannes!
By Michael Moore
May 17, 2007
It's a wrap! My new film, "Sicko," is all done and will have its world
premiere this Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival. As with "Bowling
for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," we are honored to have been chosen by
this prestigious festival to screen our work there.
My intention was to keep "Sicko" under wraps and show it to virtually no one
before its premiere in Cannes. That is what I have done and, as you may have
noticed if you are a recipient of my infrequent Internet letters, I have
been very silent about what I've been up to. In part, that's because I was
working very hard to complete the film. But my silence was also because I
knew that the health care industry -- an industry which makes up more than
15 percent of our GDP -- was not going to like much of what they were going
to see in this movie and I thought it best not to upset them any sooner than
need be.
Well, going quietly to Cannes, I guess, was not to be. For some strange
reason, on May 2nd the Bush administration initiated an action against me
over how I obtained some of the content they believe is in my film. As none
of them have actually seen the film (or so I hope!), they decided, unlike
with "Fahrenheit 9/11," not to wait until the film was out of the gate and
too far down the road to begin their attack.
Bush's Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, launched an investigation of a
trip I took to Cuba to film scenes for the movie. These scenes involve a
group of 9/11 rescue workers who are suffering from illnesses obtained from
working down at Ground Zero. They have received little or no help with their
health care from the government. I do not want to give away what actually
happens in the movie because I don't want to spoil it for you (although I'm
sure you'll hear much about it after it unspools Saturday). Plus, our
lawyers have advised me to say little at this point, as the film goes
somewhere far scarier than "Cuba." Rest assured of one thing: no laws were
broken. All I've done is violate the modern-day rule of journalism that
says, "ask no questions of those in power or your luncheon privileges will
be revoked."
This preemptive action taken by the Bush administration on the eve of the
"Sicko" premiere in Cannes led our attorneys to fear for the safety of our
film, noting that Secretary Paulson may try to claim that the content of the
movie was obtained through a violation of the trade embargo that our country
has against Cuba and the travel laws that prohibit average citizens of our
free country from traveling to Cuba. (The law does not prohibit anyone from
exercising their first amendment right of a free press and documentaries are
protected works of journalism.)
I was floored when our lawyers told me this. "Are you saying they might
actually confiscate our movie?" "Yes," was the answer. "These days, anything
is possible. Even if there is just a 20 percent chance the government would
seize our movie before Cannes, does anyone want to take that risk?"
Certainly not. So there we were last week, spiriting a duplicate master
negative out of the country just so no one from the government would take it
from us. (Seriously, I can't believe I just typed those words! Did I mention
that I'm an American, and this is America and NO ONE should ever have to say
they had to do such a thing?)
I mean, folks, I have just about had it. Investigating ME because I'm trying
to help some 9/11 rescue workers our government has abandoned? Once again,
up is down and black is white. There are only two people in need of an
investigation and a trial, and the desire for this across America is so
widespread you don't even need to see the one's smirk or hear the other's
sneer to know who I am talking about.
But no, I'm the one who now has to hire lawyers and sneak my documentary out
of the country just so people can see a friggin' movie. I mean, it's just a
movie! What on earth could I have placed on celluloid that would require
such a nonsensical action against me?
Ok. Scratch that.
Well, I'm on my way to Cannes right now, a copy of the movie in my bag.
Don't feel too bad for me, I'll be in the south of France for a week! But
then it's back to the U.S. for a number of premieres and benefits and then,
finally, a chance for all of you to see this film that I have made. Circle
June 29th on your calendar because that's when it opens in theaters
everywhere across the country and Canada (for the rest of the world, it
opens in the fall).
I can't wait for you to see it.
Michael Moore
P.S. I will write more about what happens from Cannes. Stay tuned on my
website, http://www.michaelmoore.com .
23) Young, Ill and Uninsured
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
May 19, 2007
Fourteen-year-old Devante Johnson deserved better. He was
a sweet kid, an honor student and athlete who should be
enjoying music and sports and skylarking with his friends
at school. Instead he's buried in Houston's Paradise
North Cemetery.
Devante died of kidney cancer in March. His mother, Tamika
Scott, believes he would still be alive if bureaucrats
in Texas hadn't fouled up so badly that his health coverage
was allowed to lapse and his cancer treatment had to be
Ms. Scott, who has multiple sclerosis, understood the
grave danger her son would be in if he were somehow to
be left without the Medicaid coverage that paid for his
chemotherapy, radiation and other treatment. She submitted
the required paperwork to renew the coverage two months
before the deadline.
"I was so anxious to get it processed," she said, "so we
wouldn't have a lapse of coverage."
In Texas, as in many other states, there is a concerted
effort to undermine programs that bring government-
sponsored health care to poor and working-class children.
It is not an environment in which bureaucrats are encouraged
to be helpful, not even when lives are at stake.
"They kept losing the paperwork," Ms. Scott told me,
her voice quivering with grief. She submitted new
applications, made dozens of phone calls and sent
off a blizzard of faxes. Despite her frantic efforts,
the coverage was dropped.
When the coverage lapsed, the treatment Devante had
been receiving ceased. "They put us on clinical trials,"
Ms. Scott said. "They changed his medicine, and he
started getting sicker and sicker. After awhile it
was like his body was so frail and he was so weak
he could barely walk on his own."
Four months after the Medicaid coverage lapsed, the
mistakes were finally corrected and the coverage was
reinstated. By then, there was no chance to save Devante.
"I believe he would be with me now if they hadn't let
his insurance lapse," said Ms. Scott.
Across America children by the millions are being denied
the health care they need and deserve — and some are
dying — because the U.S. has no coherent system of
health coverage for children.
Stories like Devante Johnson's are not unusual. Three
months ago a homeless seventh grader in Prince George's
County, Maryland, died because his mother could not find
a dentist who would do an $80 tooth extraction. Deamonte
Driver, 12, eventually was given medicine at a hospital
emergency room for headaches, sinusitis and a dental
The child was sent home, but his distress only grew.
It turned out that bacteria from the abscessed tooth
had spread to his brain. A pair of operations and eight
subsequent weeks of treatment, which cost more than
a quarter of a million dollars, could not save him.
He died on Feb. 25.
There's a presidential election under way and one of
the key issues should be how to provide comprehensive
health coverage for all of the nation's children, which
would be the logical next step on the road to coverage
for everyone.
That an American child could die because his mother
couldn't afford to have a diseased tooth extracted
sounds like a horror story from some rural outpost
in the Great Depression. It's the kind of gruesomely
tragic absurdity you'd expect from Faulkner. But these
things are happening now.
"People don't understand the amount of time and stress
parents are going through as they try to get their
children the coverage they need, in many cases just to
stay alive," said Marian Wright Edelman, president of
the Children's Defense Fund and a tireless advocate
of expanding health coverage to the millions of American
children who are uninsured or underinsured.
Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program
provide crucially important coverage, but the eligibility
requirements can be daunting, budget constraints in many
jurisdictions have led to tragic reductions in coverage,
and millions of youngsters simply fall through the cracks
in the system, receiving no coverage at all.
It is time for all that to end. American children should
be guaranteed nothing less than comprehensive health
coverage from birth through age 18. This can be achieved
if an effort is mounted that is comparable to that which
led to the first moon shot, or the Marshall Plan, or the
postwar G.I. bill.
Keeping American children alive and healthy should be
at least as important as any of those worthy projects.
24) Their Master's Voice
May 19, 2007
In March 2004, the acting attorney general distrusted Alberto
Gonzales so much that he wouldn't meet with him at the
White House without a witness. Eight months later, President
Bush promoted Mr. Gonzales from White House counsel
to attorney general, the top law enforcement job in the
land. The president is still standing by his man, ignoring
Mr. Gonzales's efforts to mislead Congress, his disregard
for the Constitution and his gross neglect of even basic
bureaucratic duties.
It's a familiar pattern: Mr. Bush sticks by his most
trusted aides no matter how evident it is — even to the
Republican Congressional chorus — that they are guilty
of incompetence, bad judgment, malfeasance or all three.
(George Tenet, the director of central intelligence;
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; and the Supreme
Court nominee Harriet Miers spring to mind.)
Each time, we're told Mr. Bush repays loyalty with
loyalty. We're told it's a sign of character.
We don't buy the explanation. The more persuasive answer
is that Mr. Bush protects his embattled advisers because
they are doing precisely what he told them to do.
Mr. Tenet was not off freelancing on Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction. He delivered what the White House
wanted: claims that sounded dire enough to herd Americans
into war. (His recent self-serving insistence that
he admires the president but was shocked at the lack
of thought and planning behind the war comes too late.)
Mr. Tenet put the party line and his own career above
the good of the country, and for that, he was rewarded
with a Medal of Freedom.
Mr. Rumsfeld wasn't conducting a rogue operation when
he planned the war in Iraq. He gave the president his
victory on the cheap, which could be presented to Americans
as sacrifice-free. When the plan literally exploded in the
faces of an undermanned, poorly armored and badly led
American force, Mr. Rumsfeld did Mr. Bush's bidding by
denying failure after failure. The president stuck by
him until the 2006 campaign ended in the one condition
that trumps loyalty in the Bush family playbook: losing
an election.
The president also clung to his nomination of Ms. Miers
to the Supreme Court long after there was a bipartisan
consensus that she was unqualified. Now we know that
there is powerful evidence that Ms. Miers helped to
orchestrate the political purge of United States
The more of these White House psychodramas we get
to witness, the more obvious it is that Mr. Bush's
warm embrace is really a payoff to yes-men who didn't
challenge his orders or question ideology-driven
policies. It is a cynical way to run the United
States government. And, as Mr. Tenet's recent book
shows, it doesn't even buy silence.
25) Couple Learn the High Price of Easy Credit
By JOHN LELAND
May 19, 2007
YPSILANTI, Mich. — On a recent evening, Christine Moellering,
40, sorted through the plastic laundry basket where she
keeps the family bills, statements and coupons.
"The Sears one is 32.24 percent," Ms. Moellering said,
reading a credit card statement with a balance of $5,955,
including $155 in monthly finance charges. The high
interest rate took her by surprise. "That's nice,"
she said sarcastically.
Ms. Moellering, and her husband, Mark, 39, earn average
salaries for their age (together about $66,000 a year),
live in an average-priced home and have an average cost
of living. But like many other households these days,
they have found that their day-to-day economic life has
come to depend not just on how much they earn or spend,
but also on how well they shuffle what they owe among
a broad array of credit cards, home equity loans and
other lines of credit.
Americans spent one in seven of their take-home dollars
on debt payments last year, up from one in nine in 1980.
Experts say few consumers are able to calculate the true
costs of such payments.
Behind closed doors, the decisions families like the
Moellerings make about their debt — when to pay it off,
when to shuffle it to lower-interest sources and when
to let it revolve and build — can determine how much
their salaries are worth. Like many others, the
Moellerings have run up avoidable penalties and
occasionally spent themselves into more debt or higher
interest rates, even as they have tried to juggle
other balances to bring down their monthly payments.
This spring they allowed a reporter to see how they
struggled with these choices. Ms. Moellering's basket
recently included more unwelcome news: $2,693 due on
a Visa card through her credit union, including finance
charges of $25, and $13,680 on a CashBuilder Elite
Visa, including a monthly finance charge of $200.
Their credit card debt came to $22,228, including
$380 in monthly finance charges. Interest varied from
12.1 percent to 32.24 percent. The Moellerings also
have a mortgage of $93,000 and a home equity loan balance
of $68,574, at 8 percent interest.
"We have friends in the same position," said Ms. Moellering,
who earns $30,000 a year as an administrative assistant.
"One was off his insurance for a couple weeks and he broke
his arm, and they're out 25 or 30 thousand. We've talked
to them about it. It doesn't matter what you do, you always
have that credit card debt."
Just a generation ago, financial profiles like the
Moellerings' would have been unusual. But changes in federal
regulations since the 1980s, along with consolidation
in the banking industry and changed consumer attitudes
toward borrowing and saving, have made credit more
widespread, more heavily marketed and more confusing,
with offers of more credit — at low rates — extending
to even the least reliable risk. In 2006, the industry
mailed out nearly 8 billion credit card offers, up from
3.5 billion in 2000.
Credit card debt, less than $8 billion in 1968 (in
current dollars), now exceeds $880 billion, more than
tripling since 1988, adjusting for inflation, according
to the Federal Reserve Bank. Penalty fees alone cost
consumers $17.1 billion in 2006 — up from $12.8 billion
in 2003, adjusted for inflation, according to R. K. Hammer,
a bank card advisory firm. In part because of the debt
burden, the consumer savings rate fell below zero percent
in 2005 and has stayed there.
At the same time, as banks have moved from fixed interest
rates to variable rates, the ability of borrowers like
the Moellerings to move balances from one card to another,
or from credit cards to lower-interest home equity loans,
can have as much impact on their finances as whether they
get a raise or trim household expenses, said Greg McBride,
senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. Especially since
2001, Mr. McBride said, as home values have increased and
interest rates have dropped, home equity loans have
enabled families to carry more debt — to buy more things
— at lower cost.
"It's a whole change in what we consider normal now,"
said Vanessa G. Perry, an assistant professor of marketing
at the George Washington University School of Business.
"Not only has the total amount people borrow increased,
but the number of instruments we borrow on has increased.
An average family has a mortgage, home equity loan,
various credit cards, a car loan, maybe a student loan."
The growth of easy credit has its upside, helping some
families buy a first home or get through a temporary
hardship. But the array of loans has become so complicated
that many consumers fail to understand the different
interest rates, financing charges and penalties they
now face, Ms. Perry said.
For the Moellerings, juggling balances and interest
rates has enabled them to pay for things they could
not otherwise afford, like their 2004 wedding and
house renovation, or to eat out occasionally, when
"we've both had a bad day at work," Mr. Moellering
said. He earns $36,000 a year as a software
applications designer.
As foster parents of two children they also receive
about $1,200 a month in reimbursement from the State
Department of Human Services, which goes toward "food,
general living and ballet lessons," Ms. Moellering said.
When the Moellerings pay a bill late or exceed their
credit limit, interest rates have shot up, increasing
the monthly cost of transactions and heaping penalty
fees on top.
The bills in Ms. Moellering's basket described an uneven
track record of managing balances and interest rates.
On March 27, Mr. Moellering used a debit card rather
than a credit card to make nine purchases, ranging
from $5.38 to $48, hoping to avoid finance charges.
But he miscalculated their checking account balance.
Each purchase incurred an overdraft charge of $32,
or a total of $288 in penalties, more than the $221.82
cost of the purchases. (After some pleading, the bank,
National City, forgave four of the charges, leaving
the Moellerings with $160 in penalties, plus interest
on both the fees and the principal.)
Every two or three months they send in a payment late,
running up a late fee of $30 or more.
Until a court ruling in 1996, most credit cards charged
everyone the same fixed rate of interest, around
16 percent, and fees for late payments averaged about
$14. But since then, rates have diverged wildly. Late
fees typically run $30 to $39.
In their home, with the dishes from a dinner of spaghetti
and diced vegetables on the table, the couple discussed
their relationship with debt. A 42-inch television,
an $800 Christmas gift from Mr. Moellering to his wife,
occupied the older child, 4, in the living room.
The baby slept.
When the couple met through Yahoo personal ads in 2003,
they did not discuss debt. She wrote that she liked snow;
he said he looked like Babe Ruth. She had about $6,000
in credit card debt at the time, mostly from paying for
books and living expenses after a return to college. She
used credit cards rather than applying for lower-interest
student loans. "I never tried to get student loans,"
Ms. Moellering said. "I was working full time and taking
care of my sick mom and trying to go to school, so I never
had time, so I just ad hoc'd."
Their debt escalated when they decided to get married.
They paid for rings, a reception, a honeymoon and a new
bathroom — about $50,000 in a seven-month stretch.
"In such a short period of time, there's no way to do
it other than credit card debt," Mr. Moellering said.
He paid for some of the expenses through a home equity
loan, and paid contractors with promotional checks that
came with low interest for the first year. When money gets
low, the Moellerings skip paying credit card companies
rather than miss a mortgage payment.
"And if the cat gets sick or something, then suddenly
we're trying to figure out, what kind of card can we
use to pay this $500 vet bill," he said.
In the last two years they have managed to cut their
credit card debt by $20,000, Ms. Moellering said, and
have built a savings of about $5,000, thanks to
a Christmas gift from a relative. Ms. Moellering
contributes to her retirement account at work.
Both say they could manage better if they only
had the time.
"It's been almost two weeks since we've had time to
sit down and go over the bills," Ms. Moellering said.
"You can't do it every day because we both work full
time. I've got two kids; they want all our attention;
they haven't seen us all day. We're trying to cook
dinner. We have to do the dishes, fold the laundry.
We're exhausted. And on the weekends the kids want
our attention, and we want to spend time with them;
we don't want to spend time going through the bills."
26) Southern Ocean saturated with carbon dioxide: study
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
Thu May 17, 2007 3:07PM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Southern Ocean around Antarctica
is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb
any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere
to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday.
Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne
Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming.
The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades,
Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University
of East Anglia in Britain.
"We thought we would be able to detect these only the second
half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data
from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of
carbon dioxide. "So I find this really quite alarming."
The Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs
of carbon, known as a carbon sink. When carbon is in
a sink -- whether it's an ocean or a forest, both of
which can lock up carbon dioxide -- it stays out of the
atmosphere and does not contribute to global warming.
The new research, published in the latest edition
of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern
Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least
since the 1980s.
This is significant because the Southern Ocean accounts
for 15 percent of the global carbon sink, Le Quere said.
Increased winds over the last half-century are to blame
for the change, Le Quere said. These winds blend the
carbon dioxide throughout the Southern Ocean, mixing
the naturally occurring carbon that usually stays deep
down with the human-caused carbon.
When natural carbon is brought up to the surface by
the winds, it is harder for the Southern Ocean
to accommodate more human-generated carbon, which comes
from factories, coal-fired power plants and petroleum-
powered motor vehicle exhaust.
The winds themselves are caused by two separate human
First, the human-spawned ozone depletion in the upper
atmosphere over the Southern Ocean has created large
changes in temperature throughout the atmosphere,
Le Quere said.
Second, the uneven nature of global warming has produced
higher temperatures in the northern parts of the world
than in the south, which has also made the winds
accelerate in the Southern Ocean.
"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the
world's oceans have absorbed about a quarter of the
500 gigatons (500 billion tons) of carbon emitted
into the atmosphere by humans," Chris Rapley of the
British Antarctic Survey said in a statement.
"The possibility that in a warmer world the Southern
Ocean -- the strongest ocean sink -- is weakening is
a cause for concern," Rapley said.
Another sign of warming in the Antarctic was reported
on Tuesday by NASA, which found vast areas of snow
melted on the southern continent in 2005 in a process
that may accelerate invisible melting deep beneath the
27) LESSONS WE LEARNED FROM THE 6thHEMISPHERIC MEETING IN HAVANA
Fidel Castro Ruz
May 14, 2007
5: 12 pm
Maria Luisa Mendonsa brought to the meeting in Havana, a powerful
documentary film on the subject of manual sugarcane cutting in Brazil.
As I did in my previous reflection, I have written a summary using
Maria Luisa's own paragraphs and phrases. It goes as follows:
We are aware that most of the wars in the last few decades have been
waged over control of energy sources. Both in central and peripheral
nations, energy consumption is guaranteed for the privileged sectors,
while the majority of the world's population does not have access to
basic services. The per capita consumption of energy in the United
States is 13,000 kilowatts, while the world average is 2,429 and in
Latin America the average is 1,601.
The private monopoly of energy sources is ensured by clauses in the
bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements.
The role of the peripheral nations is to produce cheap energy for the
central wealthy nations, which represents a new phase in the
colonization process.
It's necessary to demystify all the propaganda about the alleged
benefits of agrifuels. In the case of ethanol, the growing and
processing of sugarcane pollutes the soil and the sources of drinking
water because it uses large amounts of chemical products.
Ethanol distillation produces a residue called vinasse. For every
liter of ethanol produced, 10 to 13 liters of vinasse are
generated. Part of this residue can be used as fertilizer, but most
of it pollutes rivers and the sources of underground water. If
Brazil were to produce 17 or 18 billion liters of ethanol per year,
this means that at least 170 billion liters of vinasse would be
deposited in the sugarcane field areas. Just imagine the environmental
Burning sugarcane to facilitate the harvesting process, destroys many
of the microorganisms in the soil, contaminates the air and causes
many respiratory illnesses.
The Brazilian National Institute of Space Research issues a state of
emergency almost every year in Sao Paulo -where 60% of Brazil's
ethanol production takes place- because the burning-off has plunged
the humidity levels in the air to extreme lows, between 13% and 15%;
breathing is impossible during this period in the Sao Paulo area
where the sugarcane harvest takes place.
The expansion of agrienergy production, as we know, is of great
interest to the corporations dealing with genetically modified or
transgenetic organisms, such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Bass and
In the case of Brazil, the Votorantim Corporation has developed
technologies for the production of a non-edible transgenetic
sugarcane, and we know of many corporations that are developing this
same type of technology; since there are no measures in place to
avoid transgenetic contamination in the native crop fields, this
practice places food production at risk.
With regards to the denationalization of Brazilian territory, large
companies have bought up sugar mills in Brazil: Bunge, Novo Group,
ADM, Dreyfus as well as business magnates George Soros and Bill Gates.
As a result of all this, we are aware that the expansion of ethanol
production has led to the expulsion of peasants from their lands and
has created a situation of dependency on what we call the sugarcane
economy, not because the sugarcane industry generates jobs, on the
contrary, it generates unemployment because this industry controls
the territory. This means that there is no room for other productive
At the same time, we are faced with the propaganda about the
efficiency of this industry. We know that it is based on the
exploitation of cheap and slave labor. Workers are paid according to
the amount of sugar cane they cut, not according to number of hours
they have worked.
In Sao Paulo State where the industry is most modern -"modern" is
relative of course- and it is the country's biggest producer, the
goal for each worker is to cut between 10 to 15 tons of cane per day.
Pedro Ramos, a professor at Campinas University, made these
calculations: in the 1980's, the workers cut around 4 tons a day and
were paid the equivalent of more or less 5 dollars. Today, they need
to cut 15 tons of sugarcane to be paid 3 dollars a day.
Even the Ministry of Labor in Brazil made a study which shows that
before, 100 square meters of sugarcane yielded 10 tons; today, with
transgenetic cane one must cut 300 square meters to reach 10
tons. Thus, workers must work three times more to cut 10 tons. This
pattern of exploitation has resulted in serious health problems and
even death for the workers.
A researcher with the Ministry of Labor in Sao Paulo says that in
Brazil, sugar and ethanol are soaked in blood, sweat and death. In
2005, the Ministry of Labor in Sao Paulo reported the death of 450
worker for other causes such as murder and accidents -would this be
because transportation to the refineries is very unsafe?- and also as
a result of illnesses such as heart attack and cancer.
According to MarÖa Cristina Gonzaga, who carried out the survey, this
Ministry of Labor research shows that in the last five years, 1,383
sugarcane workers have died in Sao Paulo State alone.
Slave labor is also common in this sector. Workers are usually
migrants from the northeast or from Minas Gerais, lured in by
intermediaries. Normally the contract is not directly with the
company, but through intermediaries -in Brazil we call them "gatos"-
who chose the laborers for the sugar mills.
In 2006, the district attorney's office of the Public Ministry
inspected 74 sugar mills, only in Sao Paulo, and all of them were
taken to court.
In March 2007 alone, the district attorney's office of the Ministry
of Labor rescued 288 workers from slavery in Sao Paulo.
That same month, in Mato Grosso State, 409 workers were pulled out of
a sugar mill that produces ethanol; among them was a group of 150
indigenous people. In Mato Grosso, the central area of the country,
indigenous people are used as slave labor force in the sugar industry.
Every year, hundreds of workers suffer similar conditions in the
fields. What are these conditions? They work without being legally
reported, with no protective equipment, without adequate food or
water, without access to washrooms and with very precarious housing;
moreover, they have to pay for their housing and food, which is very
expensive, and they also have to buy their implements such as boots
and machetes and, of course, when work-related accidents occur, which
is often, they do not receive adequate care.
For us, the central issue is the elimination of the latifundia
because behind this modern façade we have a central issue, and that
is the latifundia in Brazil and, of course, in other Latin American
countries. Likewise, a serious food production policy is called for.
Having said this, I would like to present a documentary that we
filmed in Pernambuco State with sugarcane workers; this is one of the
biggest sugarcane producing regions, and so you will be able to see
what the conditions are really like.
This documentary was made with the Pastoral Land Commission of Brazil
(CPT) and with the unions of forestry workers in the state of Pernambuco.
With this, the outstanding and much admired Brazilian leader
concluded her speech.
And now I shall present the opinions of the sugarcane cutters as they
appeared in the film shown to us by MarÖa Luisa. In the documentary,
when the people are not identified by name, they are identified as
being a man, a woman or a young man. I am not including them all
because there were so many.
Severino Francisco de Silva.- When I was 8 years old, my father moved
to the Junco refinery. When I got there, I was about to turn 9; my
father began to work and I was tying up the cane with him. I worked
some 14 or 15 years in the Junco sugar mill.
A woman.- I've been living at the sugar mill for 36 years. Here I was
married and I gave birth to 11 children.
A man.- I've been cutting cane for many years, I don't even know how
to count.
A man.- I started working when I was 7 and my life is that: cutting
cane and weeding.
A young man.- I was born here, I'm 23 years old, and I've been
cutting cane since I was 9.
A woman.- I worked for 13 years here in Salgado Plant. I planted
cane, spread fertilizer, cleaned sugarcane fields.
Severina Conceiçäo.- I know how to do all this field work: spread
fertilizer, plant sugar cane. I did it all with a belly this big
(she refers to her pregnancy) and with the basket beside me, and I
kept on working.
A man.- I work; every work is difficult, but sugarcane harvest is the
worst work we have here in Brazil.
Edleuza.- I get home and I wash the dishes, clean the house, do the
house chores, do everything. I used to cut cane and sometimes I'd
get home and I wasn't able to even wash the dishes, my hands were
hurting with blisters.
Adriano Silva.- The problem is that the foreman wants too much of us
at work. There are days when we cut cane and get paid, but there are
days when we don't get paid. Sometimes it's enough, and sometimes it
Misael.- We have a perverse situation here; the foreman wants to take
off from the weight of the cane. He says that what we cut here is all
that we have and that's that. We are working like slaves, do you
understand? You can't do it like this!
Marco.- Harvesting sugar cane is slave work, it's really hard
work. We start out at 3 in the morning; we get back at 8 at night.
It's only good for the boss, because he earns more every day that
goes by and the worker loses, production decreases and everything is
for the boss.
A man.- Sometimes we go to sleep without having washed, there's no
water, we wash up in a stream down there.
A young man.- Here we have no wood for cooking, each one of us, if we
want to eat, has to go out and find wood.
A man.- Lunch is whatever you can bring from home, we eat just like
that, in the hot sun, carrying on as well as you can in this life.
A young man.- People who work a lot need to have enough food. While
the boss of the sugar plantation has an easy life, with all the best
of everything, we suffer.
A woman.- I have gone hungry. I would often go to bed hungry,
sometimes I had nothing to eat, nothing to feed my daughter with;
sometimes I'd go looking for salt; that was the easiest thing to find.
Egidio Pereira.- You have two or three kids, and if you don't look
after yourself, you starve; there isn't enough to live on.
Ivete Cavalcante.- There is no such thing as a salary here; you have
to clean a ton of cane for eight reales; you earn according to
whatever you can cut: if you cut a ton, you earn eight reales, there
is no set wage.
A woman.- A salary? I've never heard of that.
Reginaldo Souza.- Sometimes they pay us in money. Nowadays they are
paying in money; in the winter they pay with a voucher.
A woman.- The voucher, well, you work and he writes everything down
on paper, he passes it on to another person who goes out to buy stuff
at the market. People don't see the money they earn.
Jose Luiz.- The foreman does whatever he wants with the
people. What's happening is that I called for him to "calculate the
cane", and he didn't want to. I mean: in this case he is forcing
someone to work. And so the person works for free for the company.
Clovis da Silva.- It's killing us! We cut cane for half a day, we
think we are going to get some money, and when he comes around to
calculate we are told that the work was worth nothing.
Natanael.- The cattle trucks bring the workers here, it's worse than
for the boss's horse; because when the boss puts his horse on the
truck, he gives him water, he puts sawdust down to protect his hoofs,
he gives him hay, and there is a person to go with him; as for the
workers, let them do what they can: get in, shut the door and that's
that. They treat the workers as if they were animals. The
"Pro-Alcohol" doesn't help the workers, it only helps the sugarcane
suppliers, it helps the bosses and they constantly get richer;
because if it would create jobs for the workers, that would be basic,
but it doesn't create jobs.
José Loureno.- They have all this power because in the House, state
or federal, they have a politician representing these sugarcane
mills. Some of the owners are deputies, ministers or relatives of
sugar mill owners, who facilitate this situation for the owners.
A man.- It seems that our work never ends. We don't have holidays,
or a Christmas bonus, everything is lost. Also, we don't even get a
fourth of our salary, which is compulsory; it's what we use to buy
clothes at the end of the year, or clothing for our children. They
don't supply us with any of that stuff, and we see how every day, it
gets much more difficult.
A woman.- I am a registered worker and I've never had a right to
anything, not even medical leaves. When we get pregnant, we have a
right to a medical leave, but I didn't have that right, family
guarantees; I also never got any Christmas bonus, I always got some
little thing, and then nothing more.
A man.- For 12 years he's never paid the bonuses or vacations.
A man.- You can't get sick, you work day and night on top of the
truck, cutting cane, at dawn. I became sick, and I was a strong man.
Reinaldo.- One day I went to work wearing sneakers; when I swung the
machete to cut cane, I cut my toe, I finished work and went home.
A young man.- There are no boots, we work like this, many of us work
barefoot, the conditions are bad. They said that the sugar mill was
going to donate boots. A week ago he cut his foot (he points) because
there are no boots.
A young man.- I was sick, I was sick for three days, I didn't get
paid, they didn't pay me a thing. I saw the doctor to ask for a
leave and they didn't give me one.
A young man.- There was a lad who came from "Macugi". He was at work
when he started to feel sick, and vomit. You need a lot of energy,
the sun is very hot and people aren't made of steel, the human body
just can't resist this.
Valdemar.- This poison we use (he refers to the herbicides) brings a
lot of illness. It causes different kinds of diseases: skin cancer,
bone cancer, it enters the blood and destroys our health. You feel
nauseous, you can even fall over.
A man.- In the period between harvests there is practically no work.
A man.- The work that the foreman tells you to do, must be done;
because as you know, if we don't do itâˆ` We aren't the bosses; it's
them that are the bosses. If they give you a job, you have to do it.
A man.- I'm here hoping someday to have a piece of land and end my
days in the country, so that I can fill my belly and the bellies of
my children and my grandchildren who live here with me.
Could it be that there is anything else?
End of the documentary.
There is nobody more grateful than I for this testimony and for MarÖa
Luisa's presentation which I have just summarized. They make me to
remember the first years of my life, an age when human beings tend to
be very active.
I was born on a privately owned sugarcane latifundium bordering on
the north, east and west on large tracts of land belonging to three
American transnational companies which, together, possessed more than
600 thousand acres. Cane cutting was done by hand in green sugarcane
fields; at that time we didn't use herbicides or even fertilizers. A
plantation could last more than 15 years. Labor was very cheap and
the transnationals earned a lot of money.
The owner of the sugarcane plantation where I was born was a Galician
immigrant, from a poor peasant family, practically an illiterate; at
first, he had been sent here as a soldier, taking the place of a rich
man who had paid to avoid military service and at the end of the war
he was shipped back to Galicia. He returned to Cuba on his own like
countless other Galicians who migrated to other countries of Latin
He worked as a hand for an important trans-national company, the
United Fruit Company. He had organizational skills and so he
recruited a large number of day-workers like himself, became a
contractor and ended up buying land with his accumulated profits in
an area neighboring the southern part of the big American company. In
the eastern end of the country, the traditionally independent-minded
Cuban population had increased notably and lacked land; but the main
burden of eastern agriculture, at the beginning of the last century,
rested on the backs of slaves who had been freed a few years earlier
or were the descendents of the old slaves and on the backs of Haitian
immigrants. The Haitians did not have any relatives. They lived
alone in their miserable huts made of palm trees, clustered in
hamlets, with only two or three women among all of them. During the
short harvesting season, cockfights would take place.
The Haitians would bet their pitiful earnings and the rest they used
to buy food which had gone through many intermediaries and was very
The Galician landowner lived there, on the sugarcane plantation. He
would go out just to tour the plantations and he would talk to anyone
who needed or wanted something from him. Often times he would help
them out, for reasons that were more humanitarian than economic. He
could make decisions.
The managers of the United Fruit Company plantations were Americans
who had been carefully chosen and they were very well paid. They
lived with their families in stately mansions, in selected
spots. They were like some distant gods, mentioned in a respectful
tone by the starving laborers. They were never seen at the sugarcane
fields where they sent their subordinates. The shareholders of the
big transnationals lived in the United States or other parts of the
world. The expenses of the plantations were budgeted and nobody
could increase one single cent.
I know very well the family that grew out of the second marriage of
that Galician immigrant with a young, very poor Cuban peasant girl,
who, like him, had not been able to go to school. She was very
self-sacrificing and absolutely devoted to her family and to the
plantation's financial activities.
Those of you abroad who are reading my reflections on the Internet
will be surprised to learn that that landowner was my father. I am
the third of that couple's seven children; we were all born in a room
in a country home, far away from any hospital, with the help of a
peasant midwife, dedicated heart and soul to her job and calling upon
years of practical experience. Those lands were all handed over to
the people by the Revolution.
I should just like to add that we totally support the decree for
nationalization of the patent from a transnational pharmaceutical
company to produce and sell in Brazil an AIDS medication, Efavirenz,
that is far too expensive, just like many others, as well as the
recent mutually satisfactory solution to the dispute with Bolivia
about the two oil refineries.
I would like to reiterate our deepest respect for the people of our
sister nation of Brazil.
28) 'Sicko' Stars Thank Moore for Cuba Trip
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:35 a.m. ET
May 19, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) -- It could have been a college reunion:
hugs, tears, laughter, photos, and a big friendly guy
in shorts and sneakers organizing it all. But the guy
in shorts was Michael Moore, whose new documentary,
''Sicko,'' takes aim at the U.S. health care industry
with the same fury -- laced with humor, of course, and
plenty of statistics -- that he directed at the Bush
administration in his hit ''Fahrenheit 9/11.''
And the people who'd flown in for this intimate first
screening, a day after the film had been shipped to the
Cannes Film Festival, included grateful Sept. 11 ''first
responders,'' suffering lung problems or other ailments
from their days at ground zero. In the film, Moore takes
them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S.
base at Guantanamo Bay -- where, he contends, terror
suspects were getting better medical care than the
heroes of 9/11.
The Cuba trip actually accounts for just a small part
of ''Sicko,'' which aims its wrath at private insurance
and pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, while praising
socialized medicine in countries like France and Britain.
Moore fills it with stories like that of a woman whose
ambulance ride after a car crash wasn't covered --
because it wasn't ''pre-approved.''
But Cuba has loomed large in the flurry of prerelease
publicity. That's because the director, an unabashed
critic of President Bush, is being investigated by the
Treasury Department for possibly violating the U.S.
trade embargo by traveling to the island nation. Moore
has fired back with an open letter accusing the
administration of ''abusing the federal government
for raw, crass political purposes.''
At his screening Tuesday evening at a Manhattan hotel,
however, Moore was focused on the reaction of his
invited guests.
''Three years ago tonight, we had the first screening
of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' with victims' families,'' he
told them. ''It was a very powerful experience, and
now we're honored to have all of you here. We're very
proud of this film. We're confident it will have
a significant impact.''
When the lights came up, Reggie Cervantes, a former
9/11 ''first responder'' who now lives in Oklahoma,
spoke first.
''It was funny. It was real,'' said Cervantes, 46, who
says she suffers from pulmonary ailments, esophageal
reflex, post-traumatic stress disorder, ear and eye
infections and other problems stemming from time at
ground zero. Of the trip, she said: ''It feels surreal.
Were we really there?''
''This trip opened my eyes,'' offered Bill Maher, 54,
another former ground zero volunteer from Maywood, N.J.,
who had extensive dental work in Cuba. ''I was uneducated.
I remembered the Cuban missile crisis. Now, you know what?
I'm going back!''
''I'm going with you,'' replied Cervantes.
Donna Smith, in from Denver with her husband, Larry,
was in tears when she spoke. The film opens with their
painful story: Plagued with health problems, they were
forced to sell their home and move into the storage
room of their daughter's house because they couldn't
cope with health costs, even though they were insured.
''Health care is an embarrassment to our nation,''
Donna told Moore. ''You give dignity to every American
in this film.''
Lost in all the publicity over Moore's trip is the reason
he went to Cuba in the first place.
He says he hadn't intended to go, but then discovered
the U.S. government was boasting of the excellent
medical care it provides terror suspects detained
at Guantanamo. So Moore decided that the 9/11 workers
and a few other patients, all of whom had serious
trouble paying for care at home, should have the
same chance.
''Here the detainees were getting colonoscopies and
nutrition counseling,'' Moore told The Associated Press
in an interview, ''and these people at home were suffering.
I said, 'We gotta go and see if we can get these people
the same treatment the government gives al-Qaida.' It seemed
the only fair thing to do.''
So the group, which included eight patients -- three
ground zero workers and five others -- headed off by
boat towards Guantanamo. From a distance, with cameras
rolling, Moore called out through a bullhorn that he
wanted to bring his friends for treatment at the naval
base. He got no response.
''So there I was with a group of sick people,'' he says.
''What was I going to do?''
The answer: head to Havana. There, the film shows the
group getting thorough care from kind doctors. They
don't have to fill out any long forms; health care is
free in the Communist nation, after all.
But did the American film crew get special treatment
because they were, well, an American film crew? Moore
and his producer, Meghan O'Hara, insist not. ''We demanded
that we be treated on the same floor as all Cubans, not
the special floor for foreigners,'' Moore told The AP.
Still, the doctors obviously knew they were being filmed,
so it's hard to know -- although Cervantes said she went
back alone with no cameras and was treated similarly.
Treasury officials will not comment specifically about
Moore's case. He has a few more days to provide additional
information. Moore originally applied in October 2006
for permission to go to Cuba under a provision for full-
time journalists, but never heard back.
The patients he brought had all struggled at home with
health care costs. Some, like Cervantes, had lost their
health insurance because they could no longer work,
and were navigating the workmen's compensation system.
John Graham, a disabled carpenter and EMT from Paramus,
N.J., came to the screening with his daughters. On 9/11
he was at his job at the carpenter's union offices, near
the World Trade Center. He rushed over before the second
plane hit, spending 31 hours at first, then helping out
for months after that. He says he was later diagnosed
with lung problems, burns on his esophagus, chronic
sinusitis and post-traumatic stress disorder, among
ther things: ''I need a notebook to remember everything.''
Graham, who stopped working in 2004, now lives on
$400 per week in workmen's comp payments. He split
from his wife and says he is unable to keep up with
childcare payments.
In Cuba, Graham had five full days of medical tests and
received medication for his reflux problems. Cervantes
was treated for eye and nose infections, among other
things, and in a drugstore found pills for only pennies
that cost her more than $100 at home. Maher had the longest
treatment, to correct dental problems -- he said ground
zero-related stress and dreams about ''people falling
from the sky'' made him grind his teeth at night.
Moore hopes his latest film will make people stop and
think about what he sees as the tragic ills of the health
care industry.
''We are the richest country in the world,'' the director
said. ''We spend more on health care than any other country.
Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world.
Come on. We can do better than this.''
29) Moore film attacks US health care, wider society
By Mike Collett-White
May 19, 2007
CANNES, France, May 19 (Reuters) - Director Michael Moore says the
U.S. health care system is driven by greed in his new documentary
"SiCKO", and asks of Americans in general, "Where is our soul?"
He also said he could go to jail for taking a group of volunteers
suffering ill health after helping in the Sept. 11, 2001 rescue
efforts on an unauthorised trip to Cuba, where they received
exemplary treatment at virtually no cost.
The controversial film maker is back in Cannes, where he won the film
festival's highest honour in 2004 with his anti-Bush polemic
"Fahrenheit 9/11".
In "SiCKO" he turns his attention to health, asking why 50 million
Americans, 9 million of them children, live without cover, while
those that are insured are often driven to poverty by spiralling
costs or wrongly refused treatment at all.
But the movie, which has taken Cannes by storm, goes further by
portraying a country where the government is more interested in
personal profit and protecting big business than caring for its
citizens, many of whom cannot afford health insurance.
"I'm trying to explore bigger ideas and bigger issues, and in this
case the bigger issue in this film is who are we as a people?" Moore
told reporters after a press screening.
"Why do we behave the way we behave? What has become of us? Where is
our soul?"
"SiCKO" uses humour and tragic personal stories to get the point
across, and had a packed audience variously laughing and in tears.
There was loud applause at the end of the two-hour documentary, which
is out of the main Cannes competition.
Moore was asked by journalists why he painted such a rosy picture of
other countries' health systems, including Britain, France, Canada
and Cuba, and the implied criticism is likely to be raised again. But
he defended his methods.
"I recognise that there are flaws in your system but that's not for
me to correct, that's for you to correct," he told a Canadian
One section of the film explains how a U.S. man severed the tip of
two fingers in an accident and was told he would have to pay $12,000
to re-attach the end of his ring finger, and $60,000 to re-attach
that of his index finger.
"Being a hopeless romantic, Rick chose his ring finger," Moore
quipped in a typically sardonic voiceover.
It also follows a woman whose young daughter falls seriously ill but
who said she was refused admission to a general hospital and
instructed to go to a private one instead. By the time she got to the
second hospital, it was too late to save the girl.
One of the most controversial passages of the film, due to be
released in the United States on June 29, compares health care in the
United States to that which Islamic militant suspects receive at
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
"I think when Americans see this they are not going to focus on Cuba
or Fidel Castro," Moore said, referring to the controversy
surrounding his trip to Cuba, which has prompted a U.S. government
"They are going to say to themselves, 'You're telling me that the al
Qaeda detainees are receiving better health care, the people that
helped participate in the attacks of 9/11 are receiving better health
care from us than those who went down to rescue those who suffered
and died on 9/11?"
Moore added that he was taking the investigation seriously.
"I'm the one who's personally being investigated and I'm the one
who's personally liable for potential fines or jail, so I don't take
it lightly."
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, a CSN volunteer translator)
Friday, May 18, 2007
CSN News
The continual killings, attacks and threats against our operation
have not stopped. Every manner of destruction is used against us.
They are using social investment as a war weapon, along with
pressure, killing and threats of the paramilitaries, acting in
conjunction with the armed forces. Our historic obligation,
considering our alternative search for respect for the civilian
population in the midst of the armed conflict, is to report all of
their deeds, so that humanity may one day judge these terrorist
actions. Once again we have to report a new murder in contravention
of the humanitarian zones and against our community:
--Today, Monday, May 14 at 7 a.m., in front of the bus terminal in
Apartado, FRANCISCO PUERTA was murdered by the paramilitaries. He
was a farm leader and the ex-coordinator of the humanitarian zone in
the town of Miramar. Two paramilitaries came up to the store that's
in front of the terminal. He was sitting there and they shot him
several times. Then they just walked off as if nothing had happened,
in the midst of the police that were all around.
In the same way, today at 7:30 a.m., there was a group of six
paramilitaries, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying long guns,
in El Mangolo, along with another four paramilitaries, also dressed
in civilian clothes and carrying pistols. There were soldiers and
police within two minutes of this paramilitary presence.
--On May 13, a businessman from Apartado came to San Josesito at
about 10:40 a.m., looking to buy some pigs. He told several people
in the community that the paramilitaries are talking in the
neighborhoods of Apartado and saying that they are going to carry out
a massacre in the Peace Community.
--On May 9 at 7:10 a.m., three farmwomen who belong to the community
were detained by three paramilitaries in El Mangolo. El Mangolo is
located as you are leaving Apartado heading for San Jose. The three
men were dressed in civilian clothes and carried pistols and radios
for communication. They said they were "Aguilas Negras" (a new
organization of paramilitaries). They told the women they had been
looking for them and they were going to kill them. They took them to
where the road leads away from Apartado, a place where the police
have a checkpoint.
There the police asked for their identification and started calling
by radio, giving the information on the three of them. The answer on
the radio was that these women were not the ones they were looking
for and that the police should note it down and let them go.
Immediately the three paramilitaries took photos of them told them
that if they said anything about what happened, they would kill them;
that they were going to continue to be around the area because the
orders are to start killing the people in that son-of-a-bitching
peace community.
The paramilitaries continued to ridicule them and told them that they
had a list, that they had gotten away this time but that they
shouldn't claim any triumph because the paramilitaries had already
been ordered to go into San Josesito, la Union and the other towns
and carry out a massacre.
The women told the paramilitaries that they ought not to do that and
the paramilitaries answered angrily that it had already been
coordinated and the order had been given and that you don't fool with
the police and with the Army. You have to respect them, they said,
and they said the Army and the police had already given them the
names of those who were to be killed.
The paramilitaries asked the women about some of the leaders of the
community and their wives or partners. They said that those sons of
bitches would not get away, that all the area of San Jose was
entirely guerrilla, and that after two years of having the police
there, there were only a few that would work with them. The others
all were pimps and collaborators with the guerrillas.
After keeping them there for half an hour and continuing to insult
and threaten them, they let them go, repeating that they would be
killed if they said anything about what happened.
These facts are proof of the murderous paramilitary actions that the
government is trying to hide. A new wave of killings of leaders of
the humanitarian zones is starting, with new deadly acts against the
community, as we have reported before.
This plan of extermination by the government against our community
has failed again, as we do not intend to back down on our
principles. We continue more firmly than ever. We are encouraged to
continue openly with our search and we have the solidarity of many
people at the national and international level—people who believe in
a different and just world. The work of FRANCISCO and his memory
give us the strength to continue in even greater solidarity with his
children and his family.
May 14, 2007
CSN recommends that you send messages to your Members of Congress
expressing outrage for this killing and question if the paramilitary
demobilization really took place in that region of Apartado . Call
for a full and impartial investigation into the killing of Francisco
Puerta and into the reported paramilitary threats against the Peace
Community. Request from the following Colombian authorities to take a
decisive action to confront and dismantle paramilitaries operating in
this region and to break their relations with the security forces.
President of the Republic
Señor Presidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidente de la República, Palacio de Nariño, Carrera 8 No.7-2,
Bogotá, Colombia
Fax: +57 1 337 5890 / 342 0592
Salutation: Dear President Uribe
Minister of the Interior and Justice
Dr. Carlos Holguín Sardi
Ministro del Interior y Justicia
Ministerio Del Interior Y De Justicia, Carrera 9a. No. 14-10, Bogotá
D.C. Colombia
Fax: +57 1 560 46 30
Salutation: Dear Sir
Attorney General
Dr. Mario Germán Iguarán Arana
Fiscal General de la Nación, Fiscalía General de la Nación
Diagonal 22B (Av. Luis Carlos Galán No. 52-01) Bloque C, Piso 4
Bogotá, Colombia
Fax: + 57 1 570 2000 (a message in Spanish will ask you to enter
extension 2017)
Salutation: Dear Mr Iguarán
Human Rights Ombudsman
Sr. Volmar Antonio Pérez Ortiz, Defensor del Pueblo, Defensoría del
Calle 55, No. 10-32/46 oficina 301, Bogotá, Colombia
Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI 53701-1505
phone: (608) 257-8753
fax: (608) 255-6621
e-mail: email@example.com
31) Colombia warlord claims US link to funds
By DARCY CROWE, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 17, 9:32 PM ET
BOGOTA, Colombia -- A warlord accused of spearheading civilian
massacres claimed Thursday that some U.S. companies who buy
Colombia's bananas had made regular payments to his illegal
right-wing militias.
Imprisoned paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso did not specify why
the companies would have paid money, but the militias commonly
exacted "war taxes" from businesses and ranchers in areas where they
operated, countering extortion tactics carried out by leftist rebels.
Mancuso claimed in his testimony that the companies "paid one cent
for each box of bananas they exported," according to Jesus Vargas, a
lawyer for victims of paramilitary violence who was present at the
hearing, to which the press was barred.
He named Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte as having made such payments,
according to Vargas. Mancuso's lawyer, Hernando Benavides, confirmed
his client's testimony.
A spokesman for California-based Dole Food Co. denied the accusation.
"Recent press accounts implicating Dole with illegal organizations in
Colombia is absolutely untrue," said Marty Ordman.
Messages seeking comment left with the other fruit companies that
operate in Colombia were not immediately returned.
Chiquita Brands International Co. has acknowledged paying
paramilitaries $1.7 million over six years. Chiquita says the
payments were made to protect the safety of its workers but
Colombia's chief prosecutor has said companies that made such
payments shared the responsibility for paramilitary violence. In an
agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, the company paid a $25
million fine.
Mancuso — who was testifying as part of a peace deal with the
government — and about 60 other jailed warlords ordered the massacres
of about 10,000 people, many civilians, over a period of about 10
years beginning in the mid-1990s, according to Colombia's chief
prosecutor. They also stole millions of acres of land.
In his testimony, he also accused Colombians beverage giants Postobon
and Bavaria of paying "taxes" to the paramilitaries in return for
permission to operate along the Atlantic coast, a longtime stronghold
of the illegal militia.
"Bavaria has not made payments of any kind to illegal groupings
operating in various areas in Colombia," a company statement said.
Mancuso also said that the coal companies that operated in the
province of Cesar, home to one of the world's largest coal reserves,
paid "taxes", and that the companies that transported coal paid
$70,000 a month to the paramilitaries.
Wealthy landowners and drug traffickers first created the
paramilitaries in the early 1980s to protect them from rebel
extortion and kidnapping but the groups have since largely
degenerated into murderous gangs.
The paramilitaries, known by their Spanish acronym AUC, were listed
as a "foreign terrorists organization" in 2001 by the U.S. government.
How Rumsfeld Was Suckered By the "Revolution in Military Affairs"
Venezuelan nationalisations - What do they mean for socialists?
By Alan Woods in Mexico
Friday, 18 May 2007
New Routes and New Risk, as More Haitians Flee
By MARC LACEY
May 19, 2007
More lies from Livermore nuclear weapons lab
by Bob Nichols
Wednesday, 09 May 2007
Nutrition: A Cardiovascular Argument for Eating Whole Grains
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
It is hard to escape the message that whole grains are good
for you. But few Americans put it into practice.
By some estimates, fewer than 1 in 10 adults eat three
servings of whole grains a day. And about 4 out of
10 eat none.
Now a new study adds strength to the argument that
a better diet can lead directly to better health.
Writing in the online edition of the journal Nutrition,
Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, researchers say
they have confirmed a clear connection between whole-grain
intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease.
"In light of this evidence," write the authors, led by
Dr. Philip B. Mellen of Wake Forest University, "policy
makers, scientists and clinicians should redouble efforts
to incorporate clear messages on the beneficial effects
of whole grains into public health and clinical practice
The researchers based their findings on a review of seven
earlier studies that followed people's diets and health
over time. In all, more than 285,000 people were involved.
The new study found that on average, people who ate two
and a half servings of whole grains a day had a 21 percent
lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease than those
who ate a fifth of a serving.
Whole grains can come from numerous sources, including
whole-wheat flour, oatmeal and popcorn.
May 15, 2007
Cuban Students Try Militant in Absentia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HAVANA, May 14 (AP) — Cuban university students symbolically
tried Luis Posada Carriles on Monday, accusing the anti-Castro
militant of teaming up with the United States to commit
decades of terrorist attacks.
A four-judge panel of University of Havana law students was
scheduled to hear 32 witnesses over two days before issuing
a symbolic sentence against Mr. Posada, 79, a former C.I.A.
operative born in Cuba.
Cuba accuses him of masterminding a Cubana Airlines plane
bombing in 1976 that killed 73 people. Mr. Posada denies
the charges, but in the past acknowledged — then recanted
— organizing 1997 bombings at Havana hotels.
Cuba hopes the trial will keep pressure on the United
States to act against Mr. Posada, who was released last
week from house arrest in the United States after
a judge dropped immigration charges.
May 15, 2007
Marine Refused Staff's Advice on Iraq Deaths, Major Testifies
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
May 15, 2007
SlideShow: Destruction and Rebuilding in Southern Lebanon
Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani's Legacy
By ANTHONY DePALMA
May 14, 2007
Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much
CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from
London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest
and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global
leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?
By Daniel Howden
Published: 14 May 2007
Last Big Piece of Russian Oil Giant Is Sold
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
May 12, 2007
Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW W. LEHREN
May 13, 2007
Fighting the Terror of Battles That Rage in Soldiers' Heads
By DAN FROSCH
May 13, 2007
Civilian Deaths Undermine War on Taliban
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID E. SANGER
May 13, 2007
Critics say LAPD has 'warrior culture'
By ANDREW GLAZER, Associated Press Writer
Sat May 12, 6:51 PM ET
Venezuela to the rescue!
Wednesday, 09 May 2007
Thousands of Nuclear Arms Workers
See Cancer Claims Denied or Delayed
By Michael Alison Chandler and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 12, 2007; A01
FOCUS | Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, US Study Finds
Filmmaker Hits Back at Inquiry Over Cuba Trip
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The filmmaker Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration
to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get
treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment
in his film, "Sicko." Mr. Moore, who made the documentary
"Fahrenheit 9/11" attacking the president's handling of the
Sept. 11 attacks, said in a letter to Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson Jr. that the White House might have opened
the investigation for political reasons. In the letter,
which Mr. Moore posted on the liberal Web site the Daily Kos,
he also said: "I understand why the Bush administration
is coming after me — I have tried to help the very people
they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws
helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have
nothing to hide."
May 12, 2007
Panel Seeks End of New Jersey's Death Penalty
By RONALD SMOTHERS
May 11, 2007
Germany: Protests Over Raids
By MARK LANDLER
More than 5,000 people poured into the streets of several
cities to protest a crackdown on leftist groups before
a Group of 8 meeting in the city of Heiligendamm next
month. The police in Hamburg clashed with demonstrators
there, arresting eight people. Some opposition leaders
criticized the raids, saying the police were trying to
intimidate legitimate opponents of the meeting.
May 11, 2007
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!
We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.
Call, Email and Write:
1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]
National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece
[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
Which country should we invade next?
My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
Introducing...................the Apple iRack
"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
Film/Song about Angola
"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
View sign at bottom of page at:
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"
CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.
"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."
"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "
Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.
The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.
Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.
Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
Sand Creek Massacre
(scroll down when you get there])
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (email@example.com, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
(scroll down when you get there])