Death penalty protesters slammed in court

Greenville, South Carolina, May 9— Six activists --five of them members of the SC Progressive Network– were sentenced on Tuesday to a $400 fine or 30 days in jail for blocking the entrance to the state prison on Dec. 18, 1998, to protest the death penalty. Nine protesters were arrested at the demonstration, three defendants were out of state and forfeited their right to a trial.

“We were trying to protest the death penalty without causing injury to anyone or damage to property,” said Bruce Pearson, director of South Carolina Coalition Against the Death Penalty. “We will continue until the death penalty is abolished.”

The defendants plan to file an appeal.

The demonstration was organized to mark the 500th execution since the death penalty was reinstituted in the United States. As has become customary, death penalty opponents held a vigil outside the prison the evening of the execution. Just before 6 pm, when Andrew Smith was to be put to death, under a banner reading “The Blood Is On All Our Hands” nine protesters dipped their hands in red paint, walked in silent procession along Broad River Road, and washed their hands in a bowl of water before sitting in the entrance to the prison. After refusing police orders to move, the protesters were arrested.

“Given the state of the courts, the state of the law, the mind-numbed state of the general populace, we’re called upon to put our bodies on the line,” said Efia Nwangaza, a human rights activist and a Greenville lawyer. “We must use all the resources at our disposal to awaken our fellow citizens to the carnage that we’re subject to physically, spiritually and intellectually in this society at this point in time.”

Nwangaza, one of those arrested, said the sentence was stiff because the police officers and the magistrate were angry that the defendants pushed for a jury trial instead of accepting a plea agreement. Before the trial, the defendants refused a deal to plead “no contest” and have their $125 bonds returned. The police officers had expressed a desire to see the Confederate Flag debate in the State House, and were eager for the case to be settled to free them up from court time.

“We got screwed,” said defendant Matt Painter after the trial. Painter, a student at the University of South Carolina, does not know where he is going to come up with the money to pay the fine.

Angeline Echeverria, also a student at USC, was surprised at the sentence. “The judge was obviously biased in favor of the officers,” she said.

“This has been a sad education,” said defendant Becci Robbins. “The trial was an up-close and personal look at the very system we were demonstrating against. While we expected to be found guilty, we did not expect such hostility in court. You would have thought we were the ones who had killed someone. It was a glimpse of how capricious the court system is, and how hard it is to change the status quo.”

Source: efia nwangaza: wangaza@aol.com

Mexican sweatshop organizer to speak in Asheville

Asheville, North Carolina, May 17— Global Trading Inc., a fruit-processing company based in South Carolina, is reportedly having problems with their staff. Apparently the workers aren’t happy, and are finding life difficult to manage, working sometimes for 14 hours a day and only having, perhaps $4 or $9 to show for it. What’s even worse, some of the employees had the bold nerve to enlist the help of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), the largest manufacturers’ union in Mexico.

Mexico? Last June, Global Trading’s employees, working at the company’s CRISA plant in Irapuato, Mexico, filed a petition with FAT in the hope that by unionizing, they would be able to exercise their rights to collectively bargain for better working conditions. The company responded by firing 200 of its employees.

On Monday, May 22, CRISA strike leader Flores Amezquita and Tom Hansen of Mexico Solidarity Network will be making a stop on a tour of the Carolinas at the Friends Meeting House in Asheville. The tour is an effort to build support and “to discuss their struggle in the context of corporate globalization, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).”

A press release announcing the tour states that, “In many ways, CRISA exemplifies the process of globalization as defined by NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). This US-based corporation has 1200 employees, but only a few dozen work in the US. Almost all of the production employees are women, some as young as 12 years old. Production work is done in Mexico, but virtually all of the goods are marketed in the US and profits are repatriated to the US. In typical maquiladora (sweatshop) fashion, the company pays wages that are below poverty level, even by Mexican standards. Workers are forced to work long hours without bathroom breaks, and they often suffer injuries from caustic fruit juices because of a lack of safety equipment. CRISA is a perfect example of the ‘race to the bottom’ that characterizes the process of (corporate) globalization.”

The Friends Meeting House is located on 227 Edgewood Rd, off Merrimon Ave. The talk and discussion begin at 7:30pm.

Cosponsoring the CRISA speaking tour are the French Broad Food Co-Op Union Organizing Team, Ecofeminist Teamsters, Teamsters Local 61, Western North Carolina Labor Council, WNC School of the Americas Watch, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Activists protest nukes atop World’s Fair Globe

Knoxville, Tennessee, May 13— Today, activists hung 195 feet above theground off of the World’s Fair Globe with a banner reading “Stop the Bombs!”.

Activists scaled the Worlds Fair Globe (which was built as a symbol of friendship between the Nations) “in order to bring to light the (US) Administration’s global hypocrisy which threatens to unravel the ground work which has been laid for nuclear disarmament.”

Both Nuclear Weapons “refurbishment” at Y-12 and the refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the activists argue, send a clear message to other nuclear states that the US has every intention of continuing the nuclear arms race into the next millennium.

“The Y-12 Nuclear Plant’s example of refurbishment is the equivalent to me taking my beat up old Toyota to the mechanic and getting a new Porsche in return. It is clearly not the same car, not the same nuclear weapon,” says Paloma Galindo.

The United Nation’s Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is still in session for the next three days. Because of US nuclear policies, the world may lose an important opportunity to move towards disarmament. Even US allies are upset.

Chris Irwin and Dane Kuppinger from Katuah Earth First! said that they are prepared to stay up for the remainder of the NPT review conference.

“Our species has to outgrow the suicidal course of nuclear weapons,” says Chris Irwin, a sixth generation Knoxvillian.

“Nuclear weapons work at Y-12 poisons the ground we live on, endangers worker and community health, and undermines world peace. We must Stop the Bombs!” says Asheville resident Dane Kuppinger.

Katuah Earth First! is a nonviolent direct action movement committed to defending the Earth.

Source: Katuah Earth First!