Ontario Common Front protests poverty, homelessness, greed

Demonstrations organized by the Ontario Common Front drew hundreds of participants to Ontario on Mar. 22-23.
Photo courtesy of Ontario Indymedia

By Kristen Schwartz

Toronto, Canada, Mar. 26 (AGR)— Ontario’s ruling Tory party selected a new leader this past weekend, celebrating seven years of cuts to social services, human rights protection, and environmental regulation, and promising more of the same. Outside, legions of riot police were deployed to protect the site of the convention. It was the largest and most intimidating display of police power in Toronto’s recent history.

Protests began on Friday evening, March 22. Hundreds rallied in a park to the revolutionary beats of Dead Prez. Todd Gordon opened the rally by calling for solidarity with the striking Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, who may also be forced into a strike soon.

“These picket lines, these strikes, are a crucial element… the ability to disrupt the functions of the government and the profits of its corporate backers, is the way we can seriously take this government on and build a massive, effective mobilization against them,” said Gordon.

Gaetan Heroux of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty reminded the crowd that: “Since 1995 we’ve had 1,000 people die on these streets and many of them walked this very park! And sometimes I hear their voices, and they’re telling me they’ve got a message for the Tories: you don’t have enough barricades, you don’t have enough cops to keep the truth out. Because we won’t suffer in silence!”

The five-hundred-strong crowd then set off on a “snake march” through the downtown core, avoiding confrontation with police. Despite freezing temperatures, the group was loud and energetic. Inspired by the people’s uprising in Argentina, many banged together pots and pans.

The march wound up in front of a boarded up building, once the headquarters of the anti-abortion “Campaign Life Coalition,” now vacant. As Radical Cheerleaders kept the crowd in high spirits, people took out crowbars to remove plywood and break down the door. Dozens poured into the building, quickly taking the top floor and hanging a banner demanding “Build Housing Now!” The crowd outside was wild with excitement.

Soon after, though, excitement turned to foreboding as at least 200 riot police were deployed, blocking off the street on either side of the crowd. One line of police advanced, shields up and batons in the air. Spirited resistance was quickly subdued by blows to the head as the police cut off access to the front door of the building. By 11pm, police lines had closed in and the crowd dispersed, although many stayed in the area, joined by dozens of curious onlookers in the busy neighborhood of poor and working people. At about midnight, police fired tear gas into the top floor of the building. The squatters agreed to leave peacefully. Almost 65 people were arrested and charged with mischief. Supporters outside were far outnumbered by police and helpless to do anything in defense of their friends.

The next day’s noon-hour march called out another display of massive police power. Hundreds of riot police from at least three jurisdictions formed lines. The hundreds-strong crowd was warned at the outset that a route would be imposed on them by police and any attempt to vary the route or step into the street would lead to arrest. This is unprecedented in Toronto, where people regularly take the streets. The police promptly made good on their threat by brutally taking down a few protesters who stepped off the sidewalk as the group left the park.

A long march along sidewalks followed, as police blocked off the streets for their own use. At one point, the crowd was halted and more arbitrary arrests were made. Nevertheless, spirits remained high and defiant. Marchers hummed and whistled the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars at the baleful riot cops. The march actually grew as passersby joined in.

Radical coalition

These protests were planned by the Ontario Common Front — a coalition initiated by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in June 2001 to take on the ruling Tory Party. The Tories were elected in 1995, promising a neo-conservative “Common Sense Revolution.” Since then, poor people have seen their very lives threatened by the end of rent control and slashed welfare rates. The right to organize labor unions has been compromised and “scabs” are legal once again in Ontario. Affirmative action was dismantled, and the police complaints process changed in favor of the police. Hospitals were closed as part of a more long-term assault on Canada’s socialized, public-sector health-care system. High schools were disrupted by crippling cuts and a long teachers’ strike; local school boards were stripped of their power. Agreements with First Nations have been undermined and one aboriginal man, Dudley George, was assassinated by police in a land claims dispute.

The labor movement, anti-racists, and anti-poverty activists have spent the last several years fighting these attacks. High points in that struggle included the labor-initiated “Days of Action” in 1996 and 1997, including day-long work stoppages and massive demonstrations in cities around the province. But labor ended that campaign before achieving any concrete gains. Instead, unions focused on the 1999 election, and saw all their hopes dashed when the Tories won again.

In June 2001, OCAP initiated a new coalition against the Tories, called the Ontario Common Front. Bringing together the “fighting” elements of the anti-poverty movement, student movement, labor unions, and First Nations, the Common Front planned demonstrations and other actions for the fall of 2001. The campaign lost some steam after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington made people more afraid to take to the streets and speak out against the government. But the actions brought together thousands of people, mainly youth, around Ontario. In Toronto, on Oct. 16, a planned economic shutdown of the downtown core turned into a successful “snake march.” Crowds weaved their way through the streets, snarling traffic and disrupting business as usual, without directly confronting police.

Toronto’s police chief, Julian Fantino, was enraged by the snake march in October, and vowed to crush the Ontario Common Front. The massive force he mustered for the actions this past weekend made a successful snake march impossible. But beyond simply controlling the demonstration, the police force was meant to intimidate and to prevent the Common Front from connecting with more people.

Ontario’s prominent labor unions are also contributing to the Ontario Common Front’s isolation. Labor unions called a demonstration -- to occur simultaneously with the Common Front march -- outside the Tory Convention, and left only ten minutes before the marchers arrived, preventing contact between union members and the more militant activists.

Citizen participation blossoms out of Argentine revolt

By Marcela Valente

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar. 24 (IPS)— The neighborhood assemblies that have mushroomed throughout the capital of Argentina since the December protests and rioting that toppled two presidents within the space of two weeks have achieved some concrete results.

But they have also become the target of violence at the hands of thugs at the service of certain political forces.

The new neighborhood associations have organized community purchases of food at reduced prices, as well as volunteer brigades of skilled workers who reconnect homes to the public service grids when their electricity, household gas or water supplies are cut off for failure to pay their bills.

The assemblies’ projects range from a community vegetable garden to a neighborhood bank in which people can put their savings in order to keep them out of the financial system, where strict limits on cash withdrawals were imposed by the government in early December to prevent a run on banks.

Neighborhood associations on the west side of Buenos Aires successfully pressured the Edesur power company to consider the possibility of a 180-day suspension of service cut-offs due to delay in paying bills. Assemblies in other neighborhoods are demanding discount electricity rates for the unemployed.

The phenomenon of neighborhood assemblies has boomed since the mass demonstrations that led to the resignation of president Fernando de la Rúa on Dec. 20. The violence and brutal police crackdown on Dec. 19 and 20 left a death toll of 30.

At the assembly meetings, which are generally held in plazas or other public spaces, political and economic issues of national interest and pressing local problems are discussed.

The main focus is usually on the crisis faced by the public hospitals, unemployment (which has soared to 23 percent), and widespread hunger and the inability of families to buy food — questions that the neighborhood assemblies complain have received less than adequate attention from the country’s political leaders.

Local residents who have been organizing in lower-income suburbs to the north, south and west of Buenos Aires have become the targets of violence. Municipal employees and sympathizers of the traditional parties — the Justice (Peronist) Party and the Radical Civic Union — have attempted to intimidate the more active members of the associations, some of whom have even been beaten up.

A nurse at a hospital in the western suburb of Morón said she was beaten to unconsciousness by a stranger who had trailed her for several days.

At a neighborhood assembly, the nurse had complained that the leader of her trade union did not defend the workers, due to his political ties.

When the neighborhood association in Merlo, west of the capital, began to grow in size and strength, around 200 men wearing no shirts broke into one of the meetings and beat local residents with ax handles, according to a teacher who has become a local activist. After that incident, one of the rooms in the activist’s home mysteriously caught fire.

Telephone threats and different forms of repression — in which the police have generally not been involved — have become routine for members of the neighborhood assemblies. Local merchants even complain that tax inspectors show up to carry out audits as soon as they put up signs in their shop windows calling local residents together for an assembly.

President Eduardo Duhalde, who was designated by Congress on Jan. 1 to govern until September 2003, has criticized the neighborhood assembly movement. “It is impossible to govern with assemblies. The democratic way to organize and participate is through voting,” he said.

While the leaders of the traditional political parties discredit the phenomenon, the neighborhood assemblies complain of a vacuum of power, which has led them to take their problems into their own hands.

“The question of hunger is an urgent one,” said a local resident of Morón in an assembly. “We cannot continue delaying our response to the offer by INTA (the National Institute of Agricultural Technology) of 200 empty hectares to plant a community garden. We have to decide who is going to work there, and what we are going to produce.”

A younger resident called for an acceleration of the discussion of special tariffs for public services. He also urged the assemblies to press their demand that a delegate be allowed to participate in the negotiations with the utility companies, the government and consumer groups, to keep the companies from “taking advantage of the circumstances to increase electricity rates during the World Football Cup (in Japan and South Korea) in June.”

Although the activity of the assemblies has not slowed down, assistance has waned in recent weeks, according to several participants.

“It seems that less people are showing up now,” said Cristina Guerra, a 54-year-old nurse who has been unemployed for five months. “That always happens — after the crisis comes to a head, participation falls off. But the important thing is that the assemblies continue to meet, to change a world that no one is satisfied with anymore.

“Some people believe our numbers have shrunk. But those of us who are left are the ones who really want to do things, the ones who want to stop complaining in our homes and do what the politicians are not doing: work out our day-to-day problems, without political-party machines, just us and our organizations,” said Guerra.

“We are living in a cruel system, a society for the few, and the way to change that is by participating in these new spaces created by the people,” said the nurse. Guerra said that in December, a “rupture” occurred between the people and the government. She predicted that local political leaders in the suburbs of Buenos Aires would attempt to obstruct the phenomenon of the assemblies.

“They only like to see people mobilizing in their favor, their political clients,” who receive favors like food in exchange for participating in rallies and demonstrations, she said.

“If we are able to solve some of our problems, we will create a parallel power. If we obtain, for example, a 50 percent discount in utility rates for the unemployed and for people with low incomes, we will take a leap forward in quality, and will have many more people participating,” said Guerra.

Residents in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo Viejo have organized a first aid clinic while they continue discussing the problems plaguing the local hospital. In Ramos Mejía, on the outskirts of the capital, even the director of the local medical center has taken part in the neighborhood assembly.

Assemblies are held once a week throughout the entire metropolitan region. They then send delegates to periodic “inter-neighborhood” meetings to share their experiences and discuss their common concerns.

The participants want to make sure the organizations maintain a “horizontal” power structure, with rotating moderators and the creation of commissions to study the proposals that are formulated.

Many assembly members believe it is possible for their organizations to eventually take on tasks that the government is unable to carry out effectively.

The assemblies are gaining a growing space in the media, and have begun to create their own alternative channels. A Morón radio station broadcasts the program Assembly Hour, and the associations produce their own newspaper, Argentina is Burning.

Trials begin for 200 FTAA arrestees

By Kristen Schwartz

Quebec, Canada Mar. 26 (AGR)— Almost a year ago, tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Quebec City to protest the Summit of the Americas and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The protests will be remembered for many things. The fence erected around all of Quebec’s Old City. The thousands of rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets fired into the crowds of demonstrators. The Black Bloc, which pelted police with stones and threw the tear gas canisters back. The catapult that launched teddy bears at the lines of riot police. The inspiring speeches and calls for unity at the Peoples Summit. The long union march into the suburbs of the City.

For many of the 463 people arrested at the demonstrations, the experience is not yet over. While some have had their charges dropped, and the minors have already faced trial, 200 adults will be facing trials in the next six months. The first week of adult trials went well -- for the Crown (Canada’s prosecution). Three defendants were found guilty; none were acquitted. One man convicted of a single charge of obstructing police was fined $650; the others will be sentenced next month.

This week the trial began for the “Germinal 5” -- a group named after a novel by Emile Zola. They had planned to light “Thunderflashes” (a type of smoke bomb used in military training exercises) to distract police, so that they could run behind the fence and read a statement from inside the barricade. However, they were infiltrated by two agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who turned them in before the Summit even began. This case was used to justify massive police force at the protest, and also filled many protesters with fear and distrust of the police, and sometimes of their fellow demonstrators. Many civil rights observers have criticized the whole operation, saying that the threat posed by the young members of Germinal did not justify this intense intrusion on their political freedom and privacy.

Some of the more serious charges against the Germinal 5 have been reduced, but they still face a 10-day trial on charges of “possession of explosive substance,” “possession of military materials,” and “conspiracy to commit mischief that could endanger life.”

Israeli attacks hit schools, ambulances

By David Rabin

Jerusalem, Mar. 22 (IPS)— As Israeli troops took control of the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, a UN ambulance team got word that a missile had hit a car in the camp, injuring four. Dr. Adnan Karmash immediately left for the camp with his team.

Karmash left the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) clinic after getting clearance from the Palestinian-Israeli military coordinator.

“I was worried because it had become dark, but unlike our previous outing, there was no shooting. Then suddenly, we were fired on,” he says.

“A bullet hit a UN guard who knew the camp well and was serving as our guide,” Karmash says. The ambulance sped back to the clinic, but the worker Kalem Salem, father of four with a pregnant wife, bled to death.

“I don’t understand it,” Karmash says. “Our red lights were flashing and the ambulance was clearly marked.” Karmash does not know who shot at the ambulance. But the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) expressed regret over the incident.

It was not an isolated case. According to the Red Crescent, one of its ambulance workers was killed about the same time and near that location. The worker who had come out of his ambulance was shot in the head.

Shooting at UN ambulances is not the only way UN rights are being violated by the IDF, UNRWA spokesperson Isa Qarra says. Three schools in Gaza city, including a school for blind children, have been damaged repeatedly by IDF missile attacks on an adjacent Palestinian police compound. The schools were marked with the UN insignia, lit up, and visible from the air and ground, Qarra says.

At one of these, the Al-Nour Rehabilitation Center for the Visually Impaired, IPS saw windows ripped from their frames, and the floor, tables and school material covered with debris. Walls had been pierced by shrapnel. All three schools are now closed. Al-Nour is the only specialized school for the blind in Gaza.

Most attacks on the police headquarters in Gaza have come at night, but the UNRWA official says an Israeli F-16 dropped a large bomb on the morning of Mar. 7. The bomb exploded within 200 meters of the schools where more than 3,000 children were present.

“The kids were in [a] panic,” says Qarra. “Frightened parents rushed to the school to get their kids out. Fortunately, no one was physically hurt.”

The UNRWA says that in recent incursions into Balata, Jenin, Tulkarem and Amari refugee camps in the West Bank, the IDF has temporarily taken over, and often damaged its schools. The buildings were used as detention facilities or as operational bases.

Commissioner-General for UNRWA Peter Hansen says he is “appalled at what appears to be an emerging pattern of IDF tactics that use UNRWA schools as military positions inside camps.” But recent incursions “have been less vindictive,” he says. “They have not used the schools there for detention facilities,” he says. “I would like to believe they have a better awareness of their international obligations.”

An Israeli military spokesman says “operational needs” dictate actions: “It’s not our intention to violate the Geneva accords, but sometimes it’s necessary, because of combat situations, to take such temporary measures.” He called the ambulance attack tragic and added “we can only express regret.” But innocent people have been hit “as a result of a situation imposed upon us by the Palestinians,” he said. “There is no clean war.”

Another IDF spokesman, Jacob Dallal, says “it’s not the intent of the IDF to target schools or any other UN institution.” But, he says, “we have the right to target Palestinian police compounds because of their involvement with terrorism.”

Dallal says Israeli air attacks are usually accurate, “but of course they’re not 100 percent on target.” Most of the bombing is done at night to minimize civilian casualties, he says.

But Dr. Aeyal Gross, a specialist in international law at the Tel Aviv University School of Law says Israel is not operating within Geneva constraints.

“Taking over schools for such purposes as detention in a way that disrupts school functioning is in violation of Israel’s duty as an occupying power,” he says. “Military necessity is not a defense here, I’m sure they could find other places to operate from.”

Under the Geneva convention “medical workers have to be respected and protected,” he says. “It’s clearly against humanitarian law to attack ambulance workers, or any medical workers.”

Peter Hansen says both Palestinians and Israelis feel under siege, “but each party has to contemplate how the other side sees the situation, then negotiate with empathy for what the other side is going through.” If this does not happen, “we’re capable of sliding downward towards the abyss,” he says.

Israel should make a particular effort to think about what it means to be oppressed and persecuted, and “Israel ought to be able to do this given the Jews’ long history of having been oppressed,” he says.

Dallal says “we do have a sensitivity to oppression, we don’t want innocent Palestinians to suffer.” The Israelis always attempt to inflict the least amount of harm on civilians but, he says, “we can’t sit idly by while Israelis are killed.”

Crackdown against Uighurs intensifies, says Amnesty

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, Mar. 22 (IPS)— The Chinese government is using the US “war against terrorism” to intensify its decade-long crackdown against ethnic Uighurs in the far-western region known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Amnesty International said Friday. Beijing has detained several thousands people over the past six months, closed mosques, and required key community leaders, including some 8000 imams, to attend political education classes, Amnesty said in a 33-page report.

“The Chinese government has claimed that ‘ethnic separatists’ are linked with international ‘terrorists’ and has called for international support for its crackdown,” the London-based group said. “However, the yardstick of ‘terrorism’ has been used to detain a broad range of people, some of whom may have done little more than practice their religion or defend their culture,” it added.

The new report highlights fears expressed by a number of human rights groups and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, that repressive governments would use Washington’s anti-terrorist campaign as a pretext for cracking down against their domestic opposition or ethnic or religious minorities. Thus, rights activists have watched in dismay as the United States and other Western countries have reduced their public criticism of Russia for its brutal counter-insurgency campaign in Chechnya; welcomed the president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov to the White House just last week; and provided stepped-up military and security assistance to a number of Arab governments that face opposition from Islamic groups.

China has similarly been eager to link its Uighur opposition in Xinjiang to Islamist extremism. Two months ago, for example, it released a report alleging close ties between Uighur separatists and Osama bin Laden, who it said promised Uighur recruits a “fabulous sum” of money to finance their operations. It claimed scores of Uighurs have been trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan, which shares a small border with Xinjiang.

Uighurs, who refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan, are an ancient Turkic-speaking people who only came under Chinese rule in the mid-19th century. As recently as 50 years ago, they made up almost 90 percent of the region’s population. But steady imigration of ethnic Han Chinese, attracted in part by Xinjiang’s oil resources, has dramatically transformed the demographic balance. Now, Uighurs make up about 40 percent of the XUAR’s total population. The collapse of the Soviet Union ten years ago inspired hopes among the Uighur population, with significant ethnic and clan ties to groups in the new Central Asian states, that a similar result was possible in Xinjiang.

The resulting tensions, which have been compounded by discrimination against the Uighurs in both education and employment, have occasionally exploded into violence, the worst of which was a riot in the city of Yining five years ago, in which at least nine people were killed. Since then, Beijing has tried systematically to tighten its grip on the province, detaining tens of thousands of Uighurs for varying lengths of time, many of them held incommunicado for months during which they were subjected to torture, according to the report. If anything, these efforts appear to have accelerated sharply since Sept. 11, it added, as paramilitary police have intensified their patrols and surveillance of the region and particularly its capital, Urumqi where, for example, the arrest of at least 166 “violent terrorists (and) other criminals” were reported in the Chinese media in a two-month period last fall have been reported in the Chinese media.

“Although hardly any ‘terrorist’ acts have been committed in the XUAR over the past few years,” it said, “the authorities have detained thousands of people over the last six months, and imposed new restrictions on freedom of religion and cultural rights.” Of those detained, scores have been prosecuted in “grossly unfair” trials and sentenced in front of large crowds during “mass sentencing rallies,” according to Amnesty. In one such rally last October, 10 people were sentenced to lengthy prison terms and two more received a death sentence which was carried out immediately after.

In addition, China has successfully pressed Central Asian governments to return Uighurs, including asylum applicants, to China where they have been imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases executed, the report said. The group also pointed to recent amendments in China’s Criminal Law that make it much easier to prosecute suspected dissidents and to put them to death. They not only expanded the number of crimes for which the death penalty may be applied, but they also criminalized certain kinds of peaceful activities and associations. The amendments also outlaw membership in a “terrorist organization” without defining what such an organization is, opening up the possibility that members of non-violent political, cultural, or religious groups may be prosecuted under the law.

Alongside these efforts, the government has clamped down on the institutionalized practice of Islam in Xinjiang as well, according to the report. Islamic clergy, for example, have been forced to attend political education classes aimed at giving them “a clearer understanding of the party’s ethnic and religious policies,” while some clerics have been detained simply for teaching the Koran. Fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, which began in mid-November, was banned in schools, hospitals and government offices, while mosques located near schools have been closed due to their presumed bad influence on youth.

Targets expanded beyond the mosques earlier this year when academics, artists, and others active in cultural affairs were forced to attend special “study classes.”

“All potential dissent and opposition activities, including peaceful expression of views via poems, songs, books, pamphlets, letters or the Internet have been targeted,” according to the report.

US takes role in Colombia to new level

By Martin Hodgson

Arauca, Colombia, Mar. 21— The Cano Limon oil pipeline is buried six feet underground, but its route through the rolling Colombian prairie is clearly marked by a swath of oil slicks and scorched earth -- the result of incessant bomb attacks by left-wing rebels.

Since it was completed in 1985, the pipeline has been holed so many times that locals call it “the flute.” Some 2.9 million barrels of crude oil have spilled into the soil and rivers -- about 11 times the amount from the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Now the US government is seeking congressional approval for $98 million to provide helicopters, equipment, and training for a new Colombian army brigade to guard the pipeline.

Oil is Colombia’s biggest foreign currency earner, and US officials say that the aid is essential for the Colombian government -- a key ally in the US war on drugs. But critics of the plan say it is unclear whose interests will be served.

Last year, 170 bomb attacks put the pipeline out of action for most of the year, causing the loss of about $430 million in oil revenue for the Colombian government.

“This is not just a statistic -- it’s a huge reality for a country in terms of funding everything they do, whether it’s the military, the police, or hospitals,” says a US government official.

The attacks also reduced by $75 million the profits of Occidental Petroleum -- a generous donor to both US Republican and Democrat parties, and an enthusiastic supporter of US military aid to Colombia.

“We’re talking about something which is fundamental for the country. Obviously, it’s important for Occidental as well, but Occidental can survive without Cano Limon,” said a company spokesman.

Some fear the aid means the Bush government is more concerned with protecting the interests of American companies than in helping end a 38-year civil war.

“It’s a way of saying that US interests trump everything else. There are real and legitimate reasons to protect the pipeline, but is this the best way to promote stability and the rule of law?” asked Robin Kirk of Human Rights Watch.

US officials say they have no intention of leading the US into deeper involvement in Colombia’s vicious civil war, but, if approved, the aid would mark a major policy shift. Until now, US aid to Colombia has focused on fighting the drugs trade, but the new package would mean direct support for counter-insurgency operations against the guerrilla saboteurs.

Colombia’s two largest guerrilla armies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) oppose foreign involvement in the nation’s oil industry. According to the Colombian military, the rebels hope that the bombings will weaken the government by depriving it of foreign earnings.

From oil fields near the Venezuelan border, the pipeline snakes half the width of Colombia to the Caribbean coast, but most of the attacks occur in the first 75 miles, where it crosses Arauca state, a rebel stronghold since the 1960s.

Occidental’s headquarters at the Cano Limon field are a fortified compound and company employees must be helicoptered in from the regional capital.

Troops on motorbikes buzz along the access roads, while a Colombian army surveillance plane circles overhead. According to Brigadier General Carlos Lemus, two thirds of government troops in the region defend the oil infrastructure.

But the army is incapable of protecting the entire 480-mile pipeline. Away from the drilling rigs, troops patrol on foot.

“We need mobility and the capacity to react fast. With the right equipment we could defend it, but our resources are limited,” says Gen. Lemus.

Under an agreement with the Colombian government, the company provides “non-lethal” aid such as fuel, food and transport to the army, but the general believes that Occidental could do more.

“I think that the company hasn’t done enough to apply modern technology. We’ve been asking them to install some kind of early warning system with sensors. At the moment the only sensors are our soldiers,” he says.

Major Edgar Delgado, commander of an army base at the oil field, says the region’s problem cannot be solved by military means. “We don’t need more aircraft or more weapons. We need more cooperation from the community. Where there is petrol there is money, but there is also hunger. And hunger causes violence,” he says.

Royalty payments and company handouts have brought electricity, roads and some jobs, but the oil boom also caused a population explosion, inflated prices and the decline of local agriculture.

Locals say most of the profits have been siphoned off by corrupt politicians. The state capital is dotted with costly white-elephant building projects such as a velodrome for bicycle races, which was used once and is now abandoned.

The mayor of Arauca, Jorge Cedeno, said: “If they have to reinforce security, let them do it, but there must also be social development. If we don’t solve the social problems, the war will continue.”

Source: Guardian (UK)

Slaughter in the name of oil
in Sudan

Human rights investigators say the indigenous people of southern Sudan are being “depopulated” for oil exploration.
Mapsource: CIA World Factbook 2001

By Julie Flint

Bal, Ruweng County, Sudan, Mar. 24— The attack came, without any warning, at 9am. First helicopter gunships flew over the village, scattering families and chasing them into the high grass with rocket and machine-gun fire. Then soldiers drove in, guns blazing, as they jumped out of their trucks. They too pursued the people into the bush, firing indiscriminately.

Survivors say the helicopters were flying so low — “roaming” is a word used time and again — that they could see the faces of the men shooting at them. The blasts from the helicopters’ rotor blades flattened the grass and men, women and children who thought they were hidden from view became sitting ducks.

Alai Bol Aguk, a young woman who escaped from Bal, said gunships had threatened the village before but it had never been attacked by ground troops. She said the soldiers shot her two youngest children, but they managed to crawl away into the grass. It was only after she had searched for them for five days that vultures circling overhead finally led her to their bodies.

Dau Ajing and his two children, aged four and two, also died in the grass. Ador and Migak Thon, Mibek and Woun Deng, Monybeny Kuol and Dau Kur were burned alive as the Sudanese army torched every home in Bal — a simple mud-and-thatch village a few miles east of the Munga and Umm Segura oilfields drilled by Sudan’s largest oil consortium, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC).

The neighboring village of Jukabar suffered the same fate as Bal. Gunships killed two men in their 70s, a young mother and two children under six. Soldiers looted livestock, crops and household goods, burned unharvested sorghum and torched the village. The entire population moved away — walking east for three consecutive nights for fear of gunships — after village elders decided that the advance of oil meant Jukabar would never again be safe.

“The government has planted mines at all the water points, along the paths and in all the farms,” said Chief Chimum Akoljok. “If we go back, we will die.”

The 18-year civil war between Sudan’s ruling Arab north and underdeveloped but oil-rich African south gained a new dimension in 1999 with the large-scale development of oil by foreign companies and the opening of a pipeline that carries the oil north for refining and export. Human rights investigators, including successive United Nations’ rapporteurs, say wide swathes of southern Sudan sold to foreign oil companies but inhabited by members of the Nuer and Dinka tribes are being depopulated in a systematic drive to clear the land for oil exploration.

Among the companies that have come under criticism is Glasgow’s Weir Pumps (UK). Weir has signed two lucrative contracts for pumping stations that enable oil to be transported through the pipeline.

The total number of those who died in the attacks on Bal and Jukobar is unlikely ever to be known.

The United Nations’ relief operation for war-affected areas of Sudan, Operation Lifeline Sudan, has had no permanent presence in Ruweng County since the work on the pipeline began. In the absence of outside witnesses, government forces — and the southern rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army — enjoy complete impunity.

Word of the offensive late last year might never have reached the outside world had the European Campaign on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) not sent a human rights lawyer to the area.

ECOS was launched in May 2001 to lobby European governments and companies involved in oil to pull out of Sudan until there is agreement on the equitable sharing of Sudan’s oil wealth and guarantees that it will not be built on human rights abuses. Lawyer Diane de Guzman said her visit had unearthed new evidence of government abuses.

“The human rights abuses are horrific and systematic,” she said. “The government is going in, burning the villages, killing people, clearing areas in order for the oil companies to work …I can’t believe the companies don’t know what’s going on. When they come into these locations to work there’s nobody there!”

Sudan’s Islamist government denies that its forces are clearing land for foreign companies to drill. It says they are fighting the SPLA, an increasingly cohesive rebel army that in recent months has mounted its first serious challenges to oil. Under SPLA commanders such as Peter Gadet, rebel troops have attacked Talisman in Ruweng county and Lundin Oil in western Upper Nile.

But there is strong evidence that the November government offensive in Ruweng County was directed against civilians — not against the SPLA. In an SPLA base an eight-hour walk away from Bal, Commander George Athor said the gunships would not have flown so low had they feared a rebel presence on the ground. Thousands of miles away in New York, meanwhile, a document filed in a civil suit against the government and the Canadian oil company Talisman, the driving force in the GNPOC, brought the first proof that the Sudanese army has been under orders to “clean” oil areas.

The document -- filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreigners to use American courts to seek redress for violations of human rights -- is a directive from the government’s Petroleum Security office in Khartoum to its office at GNPOC headquarters in Heglig.

Marked “very urgent,”it says: “In accordance with directives of His Excellency the Minister of Energy and Mining and fulfilling the request of the Canadian Company ... the armed forces will conduct cleaning-up operations in all villages from Heglig to Pariang,” southeast of Heglig.

The directive is dated May 7, 1999. Two days later, according to several human rights reports, government forces launched a massive offensive in the area, using Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships, tanks and government-supported militias. It lasted two months and affected two-thirds of the villages in the country.

Sources close to the plaintiffs in New York told the Sunday Herald the directive is part of a damning body of evidence obtained largely from Sudanese people who initially worked with the government in the hope that oil would bring development and, through development, peace. Talisman, which has been given a copy of the document, has said its lawyers are examining the document’s source and authenticity.

Source: Sunday Herald (Scotland)

WORLD BRIEFS

Brazilian landless leaders arrested
On Mar. 24, Brazilian police arrested 16 leaders of the country’s landless peasants’ movement, MST, for occupying the president’s family farm, despite a deal to let them go free.

The leaders were seized as they withdrew peacefully from the property as part of a settlement to end the 24-hour occupation aimed at pressing demands for land redistribution.

Two government officials who helped end the 600-strong occupation of land belonging to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s son have expressed anger over the arrested and have offered to resign.

The government official who deals with land issues, Jesinu Jose da Silva, said he had given his word to the landless leaders that there would be no arrests. The chief negotiator from the Agrarian Development Ministry also said she was indignant that her word had been broken. (BBC News)

British invent story to justify deployment
Britain was accused on Mar. 23 of falsely claiming that al-Qaida terrorists had built a “biological and chemical weapons laboratory” in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines to fight there.

The allegation follows a briefing by British senior foreign policy adviser David Manning to newspapers Mar. 22, who claimed US forces had discovered a biological weapons laboratory in a cave in Eastern Afghanistan. The newspapers reported that the find was one of the main reasons the British government had decided to send Marines to Afghanistan.

A White House spokesman said “no evidence” had been uncovered in Afghanistan that al-Qaida had produced biological or chemical weapons and that there was no intelligence to support the claims from London. British intelligence, Ministry of Defense and Foreign Office sources also denied any knowledge of the lab. (Observer, UK)

Bush wants to lift limits on Colombian aid
The Bush Administration has asked Congress to allow the Colombian government to use past anti-drug contributions of helicopters, planes, gunboats and other equipment in its expanding campaign against guerrilla groups, officials said Mar. 22.

The administration has previously signaled that it would ask Congress to allow new aid to be used for “counter-terrorism” activities, as well as for the anti-drug effort. But, in a supplemental budget request submitted last week, the administration seeks to further leverage the efforts against rebel forces by loosening restrictions on past aid as well.
(San Francisco Chronicle)

Pentagon says no Iraq evidence needed
While Iraq considers whether to permit the return of UN arms inspectors, a top Pentagon official warned on Mar. 21 the United States does not need proof that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is using weapons of mass destruction.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a proponent of making Iraq an early target in the expanding “war on terror,” said Hussein is a “very serious problem.” Wolfowitz also said President Bush will not wait until the US has evidence of weapons of mass destruction “before we do something to prevent it.”

UN inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of the US-British air strikes meant to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the arms experts. Iraq has not allowed the inspectors to return and the US has continued its air strikes on the country. (Reuters)

Crisis looming between US, Russia

Analysis by Strategic Forecasting

Mar. 21— CIA Director George Tenet recently singled out Russia as a massive contributor to the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Despite the cooperation Moscow has given to Washington’s “anti-terrorism” campaign, the Bush administration is putting the Russian government on notice. A severe crisis between the two sides may now be forming.

While speaking to the US Senate Armed Services Committee Mar. 19, Tenet singled out Russia as “the first choice of proliferant states seeking the most advanced technology and training” for weapons of mass destruction, Agence France-Presse reported.

Tenet added that Russian sales of technology and expertise applicable to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons were “a major source of funds for commercial and defense industries and military research and development.”

Tenet’s statement — coming in the wake of a recent Pentagon report naming seven countries, including Russia, as potential nuclear targets — was a bombshell. It places responsibility for the spread of Russian weapons of mass destruction squarely on the shoulders of the government in Moscow and sets the stage for a coming confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

STRATFOR has previously said that a new doctrine is emerging within the Bush administration that is based on the following logic: al-Qaida is not dead and is dedicated to further attacks on the United States. It has demonstrated the desire to obtain chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, which represent a threat to millions of American citizens.

The United States must therefore both destroy al-Qaida and eliminate any stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons that could find their way into the group’s hands. The fact that most of these stockpiles belong to sovereign nations like Syria, Pakistan, and Russia complicates the problem for Washington but does not change the Bush administration’s policy.

If anything, ending the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), actually takes priority over destroying the al-Qaida network. Terrorist networks can be badly hurt, but it is incredibly difficult to destroy them completely. WMD stockpiles, plus the accompanying facilities and skilled personnel, are finite and are harder to regenerate than a terrorist network.

Now the director of the CIA has named Russia as the key source of WMD proliferation. Tenet stopped just short of explicitly placing the blame on the Russian government, but at the same time, he also did not blame rogue elements in the Russian security services or mafia syndicates. This would have given Putin a certain amount of deniability and raised the potential for Russia to work with the United States — like it did in the early 1990s — on decommissioning weapons of mass destruction.

Instead, Tenet delivered a blunt message to Putin: The United States believes that WMD proliferation is official Russian policy. The government in Moscow must either immediately halt this policy or face the consequences.

Gone is any residual US gratitude for Russian cooperation during the early phases of the war in Afghanistan. The Bush administration is maintaining that the threat posed to the United States is so great that any and all other considerations — including diplomatic niceties — must take a backseat.

This represents the beginning of a severe crisis between the United States and Russia. Putin must weigh his choices very carefully. If he accepts US demands and subordinates Russian foreign policy to Washington again, he acknowledges that his country has effectively become subservient to the United States. This not only would be a bitter pill to swallow but also would feed nationalist political and military elements within Russia that currently challenge Putin’s agenda. The president has managed these groups so far, but a gesture of appeasement on this scale would inflame the passions of even the most pro-Western Russians.

However, if Putin does not accept US demands, he faces the distinct possibility of attacks on Russian weapons facilities and the potential elimination of his country’s nuclear capability. Such an outcome could very easily spark a coup in Russia, which Putin would probably not survive. Even if he did manage to stay in power, Putin’s plan to rebuild Russia through economic integration with Europe and closer short-term ties to the United States would be destroyed. And in the worst-case — but still quite likely — scenario, Russia would respond by launching a nuclear attack on the United States.

We are not yet at the point of crisis. The Bush administration went public in order to put more pressure on Putin, likely after getting few results from private consultations. Putin is in the process of feeling out American resolve. He knows that Washington has the means to carry out its threat; Putin is now trying to figure out if it has the will.

Source: STRATFOR Global Intelligence Update, World Net Daily

Zimbabwe opposition leader charged with treason

By Lewis Machipisa

Harare, Zimbabwe, Mar. 20 (IPS)— Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai was formally charged with treason Wednesday over allegations of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe.

Tsvangirai’s lawyer, Eric Matinenga, described the decision to charge his client as a “knee-jerk reaction” to Tuesday’s suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth for 12 months. The Commonwealth, an organization that comprises former British colonies, criticized the way Zimbabwe’s Mar. 9-10 presidential elections, won by Mugabe, were conducted.

Reacting to his country’s suspension from the organization, information minister Jonathan Moyo said, “As to what we will do in the next 12 months, we will not spend sleepless nights about the Commonwealth. We will spend 24 hours working for Zimbabweans.”

The Commonwealth Observer Mission to Zimbabwe said the Mar. 9-10 poll was flawed and does not reflect the will of the people.

In comments carried in Zimbabwe’s leading state-run newspaper, The Herald, on Wednesday, Moyo described the Commonwealth report as “a disgraceful document which is heavily opinionated, one-sided, and unashamedly pro-Britain and totally out of step not only with how elections were run but also with what other more important African observers had to say.”

Tsvangirai’s lawyer, Matinenga questioned the timing of police “harassment” of his client. “This particular appearance is just continued harassment of Tvangirai and senior members of his party,” he said.

Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was released on a $27,000 bail, and was ordered to surrender his travel document and report to the police between 6am and 6pm every Monday.

He was charged together with his Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Renson Gasela. MDC secretary-general, Welshman Ncube has already been charged with treason and is out on bail.

The three will appear in court on Apr. 30. The treason charge against Tsvangirai carries a death penalty.

The government said Ncube, Gasela, and Tsvangirai approached a Canadian-based consulting firm, Dickens and Madison and tried to engage it to assassinate President Mugabe. The MDC officials reportedly offered the firm $500,000.

Tsvangirai has denied plotting to kill President Mugabe, who beat him in a presidential election more than a week ago amidst allegations of violence and intimidation. Tsvangirai was picked up as labor unions launched a three-day strike Wednesday to protest alleged harassment of workers by the government.

The first day of the strike saw a lukewarm response by workers.

The strike, which has been declared illegal by the police, is the first public test of opposition support since the election. In the capital Harare, most shops and businesses opened, despite calls to shut down. In some shops, there was a reduction in the number of workers.

Wellington Chibebe, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), said that in towns outside Harare they had achieved a 55 percent stay-away rate, while in Harare they managed to get 60 percent in the morning.

“In the morning it was around 60 percent in Harare, but as time went on, many shops opened, as workers were called from home,” he said. “There is still the element of fear among workers as a result of the intimidation they have been subjected to.”

He said the state-controlled radio and TV stations — the only ones allowed to operate in the country — sent confusing messages about the strike.

“We will not call off the strike,” said Chibebe.

Police have warned the ZCTU that officers were being mobilized across the country to deal with the strike. There was heavy police presence in Harare on Wednesday, deployed to keep an eye on the strikers.