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AKTIONEN UND ANKÜNDIGUNGEN
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01 Depot-Programm in der Woche von 3. bis 9. Februar 03
From: depot-news-admin@depot.or.at
================================================
Das ist der letzte Folder. Neun Jahre, 814 Veranstaltungen, 2.033 Vortragende und jede Menge Publikum. Zuletzt konnten noch zwei Monate ohne Finanzierung programmiert werden, und es gäbe auch weiterhin genügend Institutionen, die uns mit ihrer Solidarität unterstützen, aber irgendwann ist einfach Schluss mit Traurig.

Außerdem gibt es Schlimmeres. Ja irgendwie haben wir sogar Verständnis dafür, dass die öffentliche Hand entscheidet, wo das Geld notwendiger gebraucht wird. Der Ankauf von Abfangjägern ist noch lange nicht finanziert und mit dem Geld, das beim Depot gespart werden kann, ist schon wieder ein Zehntausendstel der notwendigen Ankaufssumme zugeschossen. Anders herum könnten wir zwar zehntausend Jahre lang weiter machen, wenn Österreich auf eine Generation Flieger verzichtete, aber das ist eine Frage der Notwendigkeiten.
Auch die Stadt braucht ihr Geld zuerst für das, was sie braucht. Das Haus der Heimat, ein diskursiver Raum für rechtskonservative Ideologie beispielsweise muss dringend mit 650 000 Euro finanziert werden.

Na ja, immerhin waren wir dem Staat 1999 noch 400 000 Euro wert. Danke. Dank aber auch den verantwortlichen Politikern heute, denn sie wissen, was sie mit unserem Geld tun und es gibt wahrlich Wichtigeres als das Depot.

Montag, 3. Februar, 19.00
Österreichische Liga für Menschenrechte
Solidaritätsveranstaltung 29

Weil es ein schwerwiegender Irrtum ist, politische und soziale Zustände als gegeben und unveränderbar hinzunehmen.
Robert Menasse liest aus seinen Werken.

Dienstag, 4. Februar, 19.00
Secession
Solidaritätsveranstaltung 30

„Was in der Kunst sein könnte und was leider sein wird“. Der zwischen hoffnungsfroher Utopie und resignativer Erwartungshaltung schwankenden Fragestellung gehen Mitglieder der Secession in Kurzstatements nach: Sollte es konkrete Antworten geben, dann sind sie wahrscheinlich so breit angelegt wie das Werk der KünstlerInnen, die bereit sind, ihre Wünsche und Vorstellungen aber auch die prognostizierten Schwierigkeiten bei der Durchsetzung derselben zu veröffentlichen. Von besonderem Interesse sind sicherlich die unterschiedlich gewählten Strategien, die der Kunst ihre jeweils avisierte öffentliche Wirkung, Sichtbarkeit und Relevanz verschaffen sollen.

Mittwoch, 5. Februar, 19.00
S. Fischer Verlag
Solidaritätsveranstaltung 31

Es gibt keine Medienphilosophie als Reflexion der Kommunikationswissenschaften auf ihre eigenen Grundlagen. Zumindest nicht als institutionelle Einzeldisziplin. Und doch kursiert der Begriff beinahe selbstverständlich. Was also ist Medienphilosophie? Die Beiträge eines neuen Buchbands (Sybille Krämer, Reinhard Margreiter, Elena Esposito, Lorenz Engell, Matthias Vogel, Barbara Becker, Frank Hartmann, Stefan Weber, Martin Seel) kreisen um die Frage, was ein Nachdenken über Medien innerhalb des akademischen Diskurses leisten kann und ob Medien überhaupt theoriefähig sind.

Herbert Hrachovec, Institut für Philosophie
Frank Hartmann, Institut f. Publizistik u. Kommunikationswissenschaften

Stefan Münker, Alexander Roesler, Mike Sandbothe (Hg.): Medienphilosophie. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 2003

Donnerstag, 6. Februar, 19.00
monochrom
Solidaritätsveranstaltung 32

monochrom ist eine KünstlerInnen-, Bastel- und Neigungsgruppe, deren uneigenartige Mischung aus proto-ästhetischer Randarbeit, Popattitüde, Subcultural Science und politischem Aktivismus nicht nur eine gleichnamige Fachzeitschrift, sondern auch andere mediale Formen der Informationsgegenwart veruntreut. Wenn monochrom keine Kunst machen, machen sie »Kunst« oder „Kunst“. Das ist aber ganz launeabhängig. Sie sind doch nicht die Otto Mühl-Kommune des längst fälligen Slacker-Revivals. Erscheinen sie bitte zahlreich, wenn möglich manisch.

Evelyn Fürlinger, monochrom, Wien
Johannes Grenzfurthner, monochrom, Wien

Freitag, 7. Februar, 19.00
Institut für Wissenschaft und Kunst
Solidaritätsveranstaltung 33

Wie kann gesellschaftlicher Wandel aus feministischer Perspektive forciert werden und welche Rolle kommt dabei der Sprache zu? Im Vortrag mit dem Titel „Vom Wunsch nach Veränderung“ wird Eva Waniek unterschiedliche Strategien des Feminismus und der Produktion von Bedeutung durch Sprache oder Körper vergleichen. Drei Ansätze, die normative feministische Sprachregelung, das „weibliche Schreiben“ (écriture féminine) und der feministische Einsatz des Performativen zeigen Stärken, Schwächen und Grenzen, was die Chancen für eine nachhaltige Veränderung betrifft.

Eva Waniek, IWK, Wien

---
Depot
Breite Gasse 3
A - 1070 Wien
tel. +43 1 522 76 13
www.depot.or.at

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02 Antikriegsdemos 15. Februar
From: "Arbeitsgruppe Marxismus" <agm@agmarxismus.net>
================================================
Am 15. Februar 2003 findet der internationale Aktionstag gegen den
drohenden/bevorstehenden Krieg gegen den Irak statt. Genoss/inn/en der
Arbeitsgruppe Marxismus werden sich in folgenden Städten an den
Demonstrationen beteiligen:
Berlin: 12 Uhr, Alexanderplatz
Amsterdam: 13 Uhr, De Dam
Bern: 13.30, Schützenmatte
Wien: 14.00 Westbahnhof
Imperialistischen Krieg stoppen!
Weg mit dem Embargo!
Kommt alle zu den Demonstrationen!

================================================
03 Que(e)r-Beisl am 5. Februar / 1900
From: Rosa Antifa Wien <raw@raw.at>
================================================

Mittwoch 5. Februar:
Kuschelkino: 1900
Im Jahr 1900 werden auf einem Landgut in der Po-Ebene zwei Jungen geboren: Olmo Dalco (G. Depardieu) als Sohn eines Leibeigenen und Alfredo Berlinghieri (R. de Niro) als Erbe des Grossgrundbesitzers. Die Herr-Knecht-Beziehung, die die Heranwachsenden spielerisch ausloten, ist Spiegel der realen Machtverhaeltnisse. Olmo engagiert sich nach seiner Heimkehr aus dem ersten Weltkrieg fuer die "Liga" der Landarbeiter, fuer den Sozialismus, doch der Faschismus naht...
Revolutionsepos (316 min!!!) von Bernardo Bertolucci mit wunderbar pathetischer musikalischer Untermalung.
Wegen der Ueberlaenge des Films bitte unbedingt puenktlich kommen!!!

Ort: Que(e)r-Beisl im EKH. Wielandgasse 2-4, 1100 Wien (U1 Keplerplatz)
Zeit: 20 Uhr, Beislbetrieb von 18:30-24 Uhr

Naechste Woche: Kick it Out! - Fussball und Rassismus
Vollstaendiges Monatsprogramm auf http://www.raw.at im Bereich Que(e)r

############ RAW #############
Rosa Antifa Wien
c/o Rosa Lila Tip
Linke Wienzeile 102
A-1060 Wien
AUSTRIA
-------------------------
E-Mail: raw@raw.at
Web: http://www.raw.at
Board: http://www.n3tw0rk.org
-------------------------
PGP-Key available here:
http://www.raw.at/sub/kontakt/raw.asc
############ RAW #############

================================================
04 KEIN KRIEG GEGEN DEN IRAK!
From: DHKC Informationsbüro <dhkc@chello.at>
================================================

LIEBE FREUNDINNEN und FREUNDE!

Anbei senden wir Euch unseren Aufruf zur Demonstration am 15.2.
Gleichzeitig möchten wir uns bei allen entschuldigen, die von uns eine virus-verseuchte e-mail erhalten haben.
Solidarische Grüße

DHKC Informationsbüro Wien

Als Revolutionäre Volksbefreiungsfront werden auch wir die Protestaktion gegen den Krieg am 15. Februar unterstützen. Wir rufen alle auf, an dieser Demonstration teilzunehmen, um an diesem Tag gemeinsam und mit ganzer Kraft die Parole “Es lebe die Geschwisterlichkeit der Völker“ zu rufen.

DHKC Informationsbüro Wien
Gärtnergasse 1/6, 1030 Wien, Tel: (01) 971 83 72, e-mail: dhkc@chello.at

================================================
05 [7stern-programm] Siebenstern - Programm 3. bis 8. Feber 2003
From: el awadalla <el@awadalla.at>
================================================

Montag, 3. Februar 2003, 20 Uhr
KINOKIS MIKROKINO PRÄSENTIERT:
DAS UTOPISCHE GEDÄCHTNIS DES FILMS
Rot liegt in der Luft (Le fonds de l'air est rouge)
Chris Marker, F 1977, 179 Min., Dt. V., Video
"Rot liegt in der Luft" ist ein imponierendes, dreistündiges Fresko der
politischen Bewegungen der 60er und 70er Jahre: Die anti-kolonialen
Befreiungskämpfe, die Streikbewegung von 1967, der "schöne Pariser
Mai", der Putsch in Chile und immer wieder der Protest gegen den Krieg
in Vietnam? Marker greift zurückschauend die Bilder wieder auf,
kommentiert sie im zeitlichen Abstand neu, denn: "man weiß nie, was man
filmt." Er schafft mit künstlich eingefärbten Bildern Distanz und
vervielfacht die Standpunkte durch einen achtstimmigen Kommentar. Die
als kollektive Filmothek, als Zusammenhang aller Filmarbeiten
begriffene Bilanz sucht festzustellen, ob trotz des Scheiterns der
emanzipatorischen Bewegungen ein "rotes Lüftchen" geblieben ist.
Markers Film - vor über 25 Jahren montiert - vermag immer noch als ein
reiches Archiv widerständiger Erfahrung zu funktionieren.
"Im Verlauf dieser Niederlagen selbst wurden jedoch Dinge vollbracht,
Worte ausgesprochen, sind Kräfte in Erscheinung getreten, die dazu
führten, daß 'nichts mehr so sein kann wie zuvor' (wie bei LIP gesungen
wurde) - während zugleich die Erinnerung daran verändert oder
ausgelöscht wurde, bisweilen sogar von jenen selbst, die an der Spitze
der Ereignisse standen. Daher ist es wichtig, den zurückgelegten Weg
nocheinmal geduldig abzugehen, Spuren zu sichern, Indizien zu finden,
Zigarettenstummel, Fußabdrücke? Eine nicht-polizeiliche Untersuchung,
die mehr nach den unschuldig Tätigen als nach den Tätern des
Verbrechens sucht, selbst (und insbesondere) dann, wenn die Unschuld
von '68 das Verbrechen von '78 wurde, oder umgekehrt." (Chris Marker,
1978)
Erster Teil - Die schwachen Hände: 1. Von Vietnam zum Mord an Che, 2.
Mai 68 und all das. Zweiter Teil - Die zerbrochenen Hände: 1. Vom
Prager Frühling zum Gemeinsamen Programm, 2. Von Chile zu - wohin
eigentlich? Zusätzlicher Schlusskommentar 1993.
UKB 4 Euro

Samstag, 8. Feber,16.30 Uhr
SPIELENACHMITTAG FÜR KINDER UND ERWACHSENE
Du hast zuhause ein Brettspiel, das du schon immer spielen wolltest,
aber niemand will mitspielen? Du würdest gern ein Brettspiel
kennenlernen, das du nicht hast? Du hast zu Weihnachten ein Spiel
bekommen, das du nicht immer nicht probiert hast? Wenn du Glück hast,
findest du das richtige Spiel und die richtigen MitspielerInnen.
Eintritt frei für alle, die Brettspiele mitbringen. Spiele, die wir
haben: Hugo, das Schloßgespenst; Der zerstreute Pharao; Mensch ärgere
dich nicht; Das verrückte Labyrinth; Dame; Cluedo; Zicke Zacke
Hühnergacke (+ Entengacke); Superkreisel; Die Maulwurf Company; Memory;
Mühle; Typ Tom; Back Gammon; Die Siedler von Catan
(+Seefahrer-Erweiterung); Würfelpoker usw. UKB für alle ohne Spiele: 2
Euro

*******
7*STERN im Web
http://www.7stern.net
powered by action.at
*******
Café täglich außer Sonntag 16 - 2 Uhr geöffnet.
1070 Wien, Siebensterngasse 31
Tel. +1/5236157
Programmkoordination, Vermietung und Information zu den Veranstaltungen:
El Awadalla, E-Mail: 7stern@action.at oder el@awadalla.at
Wir sind Mitglied der Wiener Interessensgemeinschaft für freie
Kulturarbeit.

--
widerstandslesung jeden donnerstag von 17 bis 19 uhr bei der
botschaft der besorgten bürgerInnen, 1010 wien, ballhausplatz 1a.
http://www.awadalla.at/
*******
7*STERN im Web
http://www.7stern.net
powered by action.at
*******
Café täglich außer Sonntag 16 - 2 Uhr geöffnet.
1070 Wien, Siebensterngasse 31
Tel. +1/5236157
Programmkoordination, Vermietung und Information zu den Veranstaltungen:
El Awadalla, E-Mail: 7stern@action.at oder el@awadalla.at
Wir sind Mitglied der Wiener Interessensgemeinschaft für freie
Kulturarbeit.

================================================

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MELDUNGEN UND KOMMENTARE
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06 Two deportation deaths in one month
From: "www.no-racism.net" <fewor@no-racism.net>
================================================

Fwd:
----- Weitergeleitete Nachricht von John O <ncadc@ncadc.org.uk> -----
==========================
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)
110 Hamstead Road
Birmingham B20 2QS
0121-554-6947
ncadc@ncadc.org.uk
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/
==========================
France: Two deportation deaths in one month
By Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations
The French Interior Ministry has announced that it intends to
increase the rate of deportations, which have fallen in recent years.
But, in the last month, two attempted deportations from France have
ended in loss of life.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ricardo Barrientos
* Undocumented Argentinean national
* Aged 54
* Died 30 December 2002, France
* Official cause of death: cardiac arrest
Case details: On 30 December 2002, at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle
airport, Ricardo Barrientos, an undocumented Argentinean national,
was taken on board an aircraft bound for Buenos Aires by two officers
from the French border police. He was placed in the rear section of
the craft with his hands cuffed behind his back. According to the
police, the deportation was carried out in accordance with normal
procedures. When the Argentinian resisted deportation, the
deportation officers forced his upper body onto his legs and his head
between his knees, at the same time as restraining his arms. On
discovering that Mr Barrientos had fainted, medical emergency
personnel were called. Later, police issued a statement claiming that
Barrientos' death was due to a cardiac arrest and natural causes.
However, the National Association for Assistance to Foreigners
at the Borders claims that eye-witness accounts contradict the
police's version of events. Refugee support groups say that death was
due to the unnatural position in which they deportee was forced.
Amnesty International (AI) says that 'existing expert advice on
postural asphyxia has proved that handcuffing a person behind their
back can restrict their ability to breathe, while any weight applied
to the back in this position - such as pressure applied by a police
officer - can increase breathing difficulty further'.
Action taken: An inquiry by the public prosecutor of Bobigny is
ongoing. AI has called for its results to be made public and demanded
a full and impartial investigation into the circumstances of Ricardo
Barrientos' death.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mariame Getu Hagos
* Undocumented Ethiopian national
* Aged 25
* Died 18 January 2003, France
* No official cause of death yet given.
Case details: On 16 January, Mariame Getu Hagos died after
being taken ill on board an aircraft awaiting departure to
Johannesburg from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. According to
reports, Mariame Getu Hagos, an Ethiopian, had arrived in France five
days earlier from South Africa, and was placed in the waiting area at
Roissy. After his application for asylum was rejected, the
authorities sought to deport him to Johannesburg. However, he refused
to board the plane, saying that he was ill. The doctor who examined
him on two occasions claimed that he was feigning illness and
malingering. But, after his death, a doctor attached to the emergency
medical services said that the Somalian's condition should have been
taken more seriously.
Deemed fit to leave, another attempt was made to force the
Somalian to board the flight. Mariame Getu Hagos was accompanied onto
the aircraft by three frontier (PAF) police officers, placed at the
rear of the aircraft. He was handcuffed and his feet shackled.
According to the interior ministry, before take-off the Ethiopian,
whose handcuffs had been removed, again made efforts to resist
deportation and was restrained by the 'customary techniques'. The
police are alleged to have bent him over his seat, his hands on his
shoulder blades, his torso pinned against his knees. According to
flight crew members, a half hour after boarding, Mariame Getu Hagos
was inanimate and inert. He was then removed from his seat and
attempts were made to resuscitate him. He was taken, in a coma, to
hospital, where he died two days later. An interior ministry
spokesperson has since acknowledged that 'the immobilising techniques
employed by the police escort may have contributed to the
asphyxiation and the death of this man'.
Action taken: An investigation by the public prosecutor of
Bobigny has been opened. Three police officers have been suspended,
pending the results of this investigation. Amnesty International has
called for a full and impartial investigation into the causes of
Mariame Getu Hagos' death.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
© Institute of Race Relations 2003
Footnote:
Amnesty International press release, AI Index: EUR 21/001/2003;
Amnesty International press release, AI Index EUR 21/001/2003;
Libération 22.1.03
Institute of Race Relations Analysis:
Briefing document: Deaths during forced deportation
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/Library/deaths.html
--
======================
This message comes to you from the NCADC information service. The
contents are the responsibility of the author/s and are not
necessarily endorsed by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation
Campaigns.

================================================
07 Graz/Verhandlungen/SP/KP/Eisenstädter Erklärung
From: Parteder Franz <Franz.Parteder@stadt.graz.at>
================================================

Eisenstädter Erklärung: Kaltenegger will SPÖ-Klarstellung
Eisenstädter Erklärung der SPÖ aus dem Jahr 1969, in der jede Zusammenarbeit
mit der KPÖ abgelehnt wird, sei schließlich bestehende Beschlusslage, so der
KPÖ-Chef.
"Hilfreiche" Klarstellung. Eine öffentliche Klarstellung seitens der
SPÖ-Spitze zur so genannten Eisenstädter Erklärung will der Grazer
KP-Stadtrat Ernst Kaltenegger. Diese Klarstellung müsse bald erfolgen und
wäre "hilfreich" für die Verhandlungen über die Regierungsbildung in Graz,
sagte Kaltenegger am Montag nach einem Treffen mit SPÖ-Stadtchef Walter
Ferk.
"SPÖ muss sich äußern". Begründet wurde der Wunsch nach einer offiziellen
Erklärung mit Aussagen von SPÖ-Bundes- und Landespolitikern über das
Verhältnis zur KPÖ. Kaltenegger: "Es hat wenig Sinn, wenn wir uns bemühen,
einander näher zu kommen, und dann heißt es: So geht das nicht". Die
Eisenstädter Erklärung der Sozialdemokraten aus dem Jahr 1969, in der jede
Zusammenarbeit mit der KPÖ abgelehnt wird, sei schließlich bestehende
Beschlusslage. Nun müsse sich die SPÖ äußern, ob die Erklärung als
historisches Dokument zu verstehen oder nach wie vor relevant sei, meinte
der Grazer KP-Chef.
Noch nicht festgelegt. Die nächste Verhandlungsrunde mit der SPÖ sei für
kommenden Montag ausgemacht, dann soll es erstmals um zentrale inhaltliche
Fragen wie die Finanzen und das öffentliche Eigentum gehen. Bisher hat sich
Kaltenegger nicht festgelegt, ob seine KP einen der beiden
Bürgermeister-Kandidaten mitwählen wird und wenn ja, ob man sich für
Wahlsieger Siegfried Nagl (V) oder Walter Ferk (S) entscheiden wird.
(apa)

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08 S i t u a t i o n i n D e u t s c h l a n d
From: "Arbeitsgruppe Marxismus" <agm@agmarxismus.net>
================================================

Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur
S i t u a t i o n i n D e u t s c h l a n d

Wirtschaft & Soziales
Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung der BRD war von Beginn an sehr stark auf den
Export orientiert und die weltwirtschaftliche Entwicklung prägt das Bild
deshalb ausgesprochen stark. Nach dem sogenannten Wiedervereinigungsboom
etwa 1991-1994 war es vor allem die starke US-Wirtschaft 1995-2001, die der
bundesdeutschen Wirtschaft noch eine gewisse Expansion ermöglichte, der dann
freilich mit dem Ende des US-Booms und der gleichzeitigen Aufwertung des
Euro ein jähes Ende gesetzt wurde. In den vergangenen beiden Jahren ist
das BIP um durchschnittlich nur noch 1% jährlich gewachsen und allen
Prognosen zufolge wird sich das Wachstum weiter abschwächen.
Neben der erwähnten Exportschwäche setzt sich diese allgemeine Schwäche der
deutschen Wirtschaft dabei im Wesentlichen aus zwei Faktoren zusammen: Einer
stark sinkenden Investitionsbereitschaft (die Bruttoanlageinvestitionen sind
seit drei Jahren rückläufig) und der stagnierende private Konsum (die realen
Einzelhandelsumsätze sind seit rund vier Jahren gleichbleibend).
Gleichzeitig sind jedoch die Gewinne in der Privatwirtschaft seit 1993 (dem
Tiefstand der Nachkriegszeit) und nochmals verstärkt in den vergangenen
Jahren gestiegen. Dieses scheinbare Paradox - geringes Wirtschaftswachstum,
geringe Investitionen, geringes Produktivitätswachstum bei gleichzeitig
steigenden Profiten - entspricht dabei einer Entwicklung, die - in
unterschiedlicher Gewichtung - in fast allen imperialistischen Zentren
stattfindet bzw. stattgefunden hat: Nämlich einer Erholung der Profitraten,
die zu sehr großen Teilen auf einer Umverteilung von unten nach oben
basiert, und nicht - wie das etwa im langen Nachkriegsboom der Fall war -
auf steigenden Investitionen und steigender Produktivität.
Diese Umverteilung erklärt dann auch die sinkende private Nachfrage, und
teilweise auch die geringen Investitionen, die zwar in erster Linie eine
Funktion der Profitentwicklung sind, aber nichts desto trotz in bezug auf
Absatzchancen getätigt werden. Die strukturelle Exportabhängigkeit wurde
dadurch noch verstärkt, was in Relation zu den erwähnten
weltwirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen den regelrechten Einbruch der vergangenen
zwei Jahre erklärt.
Diese massive Umverteilung begann bereits in den 1980er Jahren unter der
Regierung Kohl und hat sich mit dem Amtantritt der rot-grünen Regierung
Schröder im Herbst 1998 noch verstärkt. Dabei ging es - zumindest anfangs -
weniger um das direkte Lohnniveau, als viel mehr um die sogenannte
Modernisierung der Gesellschaft. Das meint einerseits einfachen Sozialabbau:
als Beispiele seien hier genannt die Einführung der sogenannten Riesterrente
(Förderung der Eigenvorsorge, Reduktion der Unternehmensbeiräte, allgemeine
Kürzung des Rentenniveaus; 2000/2001), die Rürüp-Kommission (Reduktion der
staatlichen Gesundheitsvorsorge; gerade in Planung), sowie zahlreiche
Erhöhungen bei Massensteuern.
Auf der anderen Seite geht es vor allem um die Deregulierung der
Arbeitsverhältnisse. Das geschah und geschieht vor allem mittels der von der
Hartz-Kommission (bestehend vor allem aus Vertretern der Wirtschaft, unter
der Führung des vormaligen VW-Personalchefs Hartz) gemachten Vorschläge:
Verschärfung des Arbeitszwangs, Kürzung des Arbeitslosengeldes, Förderung
von Leih- und Kurzarbeit etc. Schließlich wurde der Flächentarifvertrag in
den vergangenen Jahren weiter ausgehöhlt. Bundesweit arbeiten mittlerweilen
nur noch knapp zwei Drittel der Beschäftigten auf Kollektivvertragsbasis, in
Ostdeutschland 35-40%. Sichtlich zufrieden kommentierte das konservative
Sprachrohr der deutschen Bourgeoisie, das Handelsblatt: "Plötzlich geht all
das mit der SPD, was seit Jahren als kapitalistisches Teufelszeug gegolten
hatte." Das deutsche Kapital will sich von der SPD möglichst viel
Dreckarbeit durchführen lassen, um dann eine zerrüttete Sozialdemokratie
erst recht in Opposition zu schicken.
Die Klassen
Nachdem es Anfang der 1990er Jahre zu einer Phase des verstärkten
Klassenkampfes kam (relativ verstärkt, natürlich), ging es seit 1996 wieder
bergab. Dieser Abwärtstrend wurde durch den Regierungsantritt der SPD noch
beschleunigt. Immerhin hatte der DGB offiziell zur Wahl für die SPD
aufgerufen und die SPD hat die Wahl auch mit einem relativ linken Wahlkampf
gewonnen. Diese Einbindung der Gewerkschaften und die Illusionen in die
"linke" SPD (die immerhin seit 1982 in der Opposition war, was ein
wesentlicher Unterschied etwa zur SPÖ ist) waren die Hauptgründe dafür, die
sicherlich vorhandenen Enttäuschungen über die zahlreichen gebrochenen
Wahlversprechen im Zaum zu halten. So konnte die Regierung Schröder mit
kräftiger Unterstützung der Wirtschaft (daher Schröders Spitzname "Genosse
der Bosse") ihre Angriffe auf die sozialen Errungenschaften der
Arbeiterklasse zumindest in den ersten drei Jahren der Legislaturperiode
fast ohne Gegenwehr durchsetzen.
Erst seit dem Frühjahr 2002 hat sich die Lage etwas verändert. So kam es
über das ganze Jahr hinweg zu zahlreichen Warnstreiks in unterschiedlichen
Wirtschaftszweigen, und es kam zum ersten Mal seit Jahren wieder zu
regulären Streiks, und zwar in der Metallindustrie und im Bauhauptgewerbe.
Bemerkenswert an diesen beiden Streiks war vor allem, dass sie während einer
wirtschaftlichen Krisenzeit stattfanden (während es in der Regel fast nur in
Boomphasen zu Streiks kommt - wenn es "etwas zu verteilen gibt" und wenn vor
allem die Angst vor Entlassung geringer ist) und dass sie unmittelbar vor
der Bundestagswahl stattfanden. Zusammen mit der Tatsache, dass bei der
Bundestagswahl 2002 der DGB als Gesamtgewerkschaft nicht offiziell für die
Wahl der SPD aufgerufen hat (das haben nur Einzelgewerkschaften getan) zeugt
das einerseits von einem doch relativ starken Druck seitens der
Gewerkschaftsbasis und andererseits auch von verstärkten Trennungstendenzen
von SPD und DGB. Das zeigt sich teilweise auch in den gegenwärtigen
Tarifverhandlungen im öffentlichen Dienst, die von der
"Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft" verdi geführt werden. Nicht zuletzt wegen der
vor drei Jahren von oben vollzogenen Fusion verschiedener
Einzelgewerkschaften (ÖTV, IG Medien etc, die ohnehin eher links standen)
ist dort der Druck der Basis noch größer als in anderen Gewerkschaften (von
der IG Metall mal abgesehen), was mittlerweilen zu zahlreichen
Demonstrationen und Warnstreiks geführt hat, was angesichts der Tatsache,
dass der Arbeitgeber hier von der SPD verkörpert wird, doch bemerkenswert
ist. Auch wenn verdi letztendlich ohne Streik klein beigegeben hat, zeugt
das auf jeden Fall von einer weiteren Desintegration zwischen Partei und
DGB.
Insgesamt könnten die nächsten Jahre zu verstärkten Klassenkämpfen führen.
Dafür sprechen mehrere Gründe. Zum einen wird sich die wirtschaftliche Lage
der Bundesrepublik in absehbarer Zeit kaum verbessern, was einerseits die
Bourgeoisie zu weiteren Angriffen treiben und andererseits die soziale Lage
verschärfen wird. So wird den meisten Gutachten zufolge die Arbeitslosigkeit
bis zum Frühjahr auf rund 4,5 Mio ansteigen, und das trotz einer steigenden
Zahl von geringfügigen und/oder schlecht bezahlten Arbeitsplätzen. Zum
anderen sieht es derzeit nicht so aus, als ob die Regierung Schröder die
gesamte Legislaturperiode bis 2006 überleben wird. Um die Regierung vor sich
her zu treiben, die SPD zu zersetzen und sich die Option einer CDU-Regierung
offen zu halten, attackieren die allergrößten Teile der "Wirtschaft" die
Regierung fast permanent. Vermittelt über die veröffentlichte Meinung
unterstützen in der Folge laut Umfragen nur noch 20% der Bevölkerung die
Regierung. Diese "öffentliche Meinung" dürfte auf jeden Fall ein Ventil für
den Unmut vieler Beschäftigten sein, deren Streikbereitschaft auch aufgrund
mangelnder Erfahrung (noch) nicht verhanden ist bzw durch die
Gewerkschaftsbürokratie unterbunden wird. Kommt es aber inmitten einer
wirtschaftlichen Stagnationsphase zu einer offenen konservativen Wende, mit
den zu erwartenden scharfen Angriffen auf die Arbeiterklasse, wird die
Gewerkschaftsbürokratie zwar weiterhin versuchen, konsequente Klassenkämpfe
abzuwiegeln, sind wird aber stärker unter Druck von unten kommen und weniger
leicht Ausreden finden, um Kampfmassnahmen abzulehnen.
Politik
Träger dieser konservativen Wende wären die CDU, FDP und in einiger Hinsicht
die Grünen. Die CDU nach der Kohl-Spenden-Geschichte wohl endgültig
stabilisiert und versucht seit der überraschenden Niederlage bei der
Bundestagswahl sich rechts außen zu profilieren. Sie macht das einerseits
mit schon gewohnt ausländerfeindlichen Parolen, und bietet sich andererseits
in bezug auf den Irakkrieg als Bündnispartner für die USA an. Mit
Unterstützung wesentlicher Kreise des Kapitals und fast aller Medien ist sie
eindeutig im Aufwärtstrend und verfügt nach den klaren Siegen bei den
Landtagswahlen in Niedersachsen und Hessen im in Deutschland sehr wichtigen
Bundesrat über die Mehrheit und wird dadurch der rot-grünen Regierung ihren
Kurs weiter aufdrängen können.
Die FDP hingegen ist nach der Wahlniederlage und der Möllemanngeschichte
weitgehend geschwächt. Zwar setzt die Partei weiter auf populistische
Losungen und hat einige bekannte Altliberale durch Austritte verloren, ist
aber von einer Haiderisierung weit entfernt.
Die Grünen haben sich seit ihrer Regierungsbeteiligung vehement nach rechts
entwickelt und spielen innerhalb der Regierung immer mehr die Rolle des
neoliberalen Rammbocks. Die in den letzten beiden Jahren stattgefundenen
Aus- und Neueintritte haben zu einer personellen Neuerung von über der
Hälfte der Mitglieder geführt, wodurch die historischen Wurzeln der Partei
mehr oder weniger Vergangenheit sein dürften und der neoliberale (und
explizit antigewerkschaftliche) Flügel eindeutig dominiert. Es ist deshalb
auch kein Zufall, dass verstärkt Rufe nach einer Koalition mit der CDU laut
werden (was in Köln auch gerade passiert).
Nicht unähnlich ist in gewisser Hinsicht auch die Entwicklung der PDS. Dort
wurde zwar einerseits gegen den Willen der Führung vom Parteitag die eher
linke Gaby Zimmer zur Parteichefin gewählt. Anderseits spielt die PDS bei
ihren Regierungsbeteilungen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und vor allem in
Berlin eine äußerst reaktionäre Rolle. Das meint nicht den in Berlin
stattfindenden sozialen Kahlschlag, sondern vor allem die Tatsache , dass
die Berlin unter der rot-roten Koalition als erstes Land aus dem
Arbeitgeberverband und damit aus dem Flächentarifvertrag ausgetreten ist.
Die Wahl von Zimmer und die Einbeziehung von Linken in den Bundesvorstand
zeigt dabei, dass die kontinuierliche Transformation der PDS nach rechts
nicht sehr einfach abläuft. Nach wie vor ist eine Spaltung der Partei
möglich, wenn auch in den letzten Jahren unwahrscheinlicher geworden.
Neben den sozialen "Reformen" ist der Krieg gegen den Irak gegenwärtig das
wichtigste Thema in der Bundesrepublik. Ähnlich der französischen hat auch
die deutsche Bourgeoisie kein eigentliches Interesse an einer allzu
deutlichen US-amerikanischen und britischen Dominanz in der Golfregion.
Andererseits hängt die zügig vor sich gehenden Militärisierung der deutschen
Außenpolitik und deren politische Bedeutung nicht zuletzt auch von der
"Anerkennung" der anderen imperialistischen Großmächte ab. Das dürfte der
wesentliche Grund für die unterschiedlichsten Positionierungen der
politischen Elite sein. Zudem erschwert die relativ breite
Antikriegsstimmung in der Bevölkerung eine allzu glatte
Pro-Kriegorientierung der Bundesregierung, zumal der Pazifismus einer der
Hebel war, mit der die SPD die Bundestagswahl gewinnen konnte.
Dementsprechend laviert die SPD zwischen "Nein-zum-Krieg-Rhetorik" und dem
Hoffen auf eine zweite UNO-Resolution, die den Krieg "legalisieren" und auch
in der Öffentlichkeit verkaufbar machen würde. Die bürgerliche Opposition
hingegen ist diesem öffentlichen Druck weit weniger ausgesetzt und fährt
auch aufgrund ihrer generell aggressiveren Außenpolitik einen klaren
Kriegskurs. In bezug auf den Irakkrieg dürfte das in letzter Hinsicht egal
sein - zumindest wenn die USA eine zweite Resolution abwartet. Allerdings
würde ein Regierungseintritt der CDU nach der nächsten Wahl die militärische
Außenorientierung Deutschlands deutlich verstärken - vor allem, weil die
rotgrüne Regierung durch ihre Tabubrüche im Kosovo und in Afghanistan dem
genügend Vorschub geleistet hat.
Angesichts der Unwahrscheinlichkeit, dass die Europäische Union gegen einen
Militärschlag votiert, dürfte es in Deutschland zu größeren
Antikriegsdemonstrationen kommen. Dabei wird es sowohl linke
internationalistische, antiimperialistische und antimilitaristische
Tendenzen geben als auch kleinbürgerlich-pazifistische und reaktionäre
antiamerikanisch-nationalistische (von Deutschen oder auch ImmigrantInnen).
Die radikale Linke muss in ihrem Kampf um die politische Hegemonie in der
Bewegung ihre im Vordergrund stehende Opposition gegen eine Aggression des
US-Imperialismus und seine Verbündeten mit einer deutlichen Abgrenzung von
den angesprochenen reaktionären Tendenzen verbinden.
Mehr Material der AGM unter www.agmarxismus.net

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DISKUSSION
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09 Praktiken der MUND-Redaktion
From: turambar <turambar@aon.at>
================================================

Zuerst möchte ich nocheinmal auf eine Erklärung des ArbeiterInnenstandpunktes
(Ast) im Red Newsletter 59 zur laufenden Lügenhetze gegen die AIK verweisen, auf die es bereits
einen Verweis im MUND von 2.2. gab. Die Erklärung ist auf der
Webseite des ASt (http://www.arbeiterInnenstandpunkt.org) zu finden.
Offensichtlich platzt angesichts der erbärmlichen Kampagne auch
schon anderen Organisationen der Kragen.
Jetzt aber zu den Praktiken der MUND-Redaktion:
Seit Jahren spielt sich innerhalb der österreichischen (und nicht
nur der österreichischen, sondern in vielen europäischen Ländern) Linken der
hauptsächlich an den verschiedenen Positionen zur
Israel/Palästina-Frage entzündete Konflikt zwischen den
antiimperialistischen Kräften einerseits und den sogenannten
"Antinationalen" oder auch "Antideutschen" andererseits ab.
Da der MUND ein wichtiges Diskussionsforum darstellt, wurde bzw. wird dieser Konflikt
natürlich auch auf den Seiten des MUND ausgetragen.
Im Frühjahr 2002 verkündete die Redaktion des MUND, keine
undifferenzierten bzw. wertenden Beiträge zu diesem Thema mehr zu
veröffentlichen, da die Argumente beider Seiten erschöpfend
dargelegt seien und man/frau seitens der MUND-Red., wie später
gesagt wurde, dazu beitragen will, die "österreichische Fixierung auf Israel" aufzubrechen,
also die Leute dazu zu bewegen, ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf andere
wichtige Konflikte nicht zugunsten des I/P-Konfliktes zu
vernachlässigen. Natürlich hat sich die MUND-Red. damit eine
schwierige Gratwanderung auferlegt, da nach wie vor von beiden
Seiten Beiträge zu I/P an den MUND geschickt werden und die
MUND-Red. sich daher häufig damit auseinanderzusetzen hat, welcher
Beiträge jetzt im Sinne des Beschlusses von Frühjahr 2002 wegzulassen
sind und welche nicht unter die Auschlussgründe fallen, also
veröffentlicht werden können.
Seit einigen Wochen spitzt sich der erwähnte Konflikt innerhalb der
Linken erneut in mittlerweile äußerst bedenklicher Weise zu. Anlass
war offensichtlich eine von der Antiimperialistischen Koordination
(AIK) veranstaltete Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema "Ist Antizionismus
Antisemitismus?", zu der als Hauptredner Michel Warschawski vom
israelischen Alternative Information Center geladen war, außerdem
Mustafa Hadi von der palästinensischen Gemeinde, Dr. Ariel Muzicant
von der israelitischen Kultusgemeide und Susanne Jerusalem von den
Grünen, wobei Frau Jerusalem und Hr. Muzicant aus mittlerweile
hinreichend diskutierten Gründen nicht teilgenommen haben. Diese
Veranstaltung, bzw. eigentlich bereits deren Ankündigung, war für einige Leute aus dem
"antinationalen" Bereich Grund genug, ihre seit längerer Zeit periodisch
vorgetragenen Angriffe gegen die AIK zu verstärken und offenbar
diesmal besonders massiv und konzentriert zu versuchen, die AIK als antisemitisch
darzustellen und damit in der Linken ihren Ruf zu ruinieren.
Bei dieser Gelegenheit drängt sich die Frage auf, wieso diese
Personen eine von der AIK veranstaltete Diskussion über ihre (=AIK)
eigene Position nicht in genau diesem Sinn, also der direkten inhaltlichen
Konfrontation genützt haben. Einige Personen aus dem
"antinationalen" Bereich waren bei der Diskussion anwesend, haben
sich aber mit einer etwa 30-sekündigen Ausnahme nicht zu Wort gemeldet.
Die Vermutung liegt nahe, dass nur nach irgendetwas gesucht wurde, das als antisemitisch
interpretierbar sein könnte, offensichtlich wurde man/frau aber nicht
fündig, sonst wäre der MUND längst voll davon gewesen.
Dennoch ist der MUND eines der Hauptmedien, über die die Attacken gegen RKL,
KOMAK-ML und vor allem AIK verbreitet werden.
Höchste Zeit, die Rolle des MUND in diesem Konflikt aus meiner Sicht
einmal etwas näher zu beleuchten.
Vor etwa zweieinhalb Jahren habe ich, damals noch als
unorganisierter Sympathisant des palästinensischen Widerstandes,
begonnen, den MUND zu lesen. Bald wurde ich auf den Konflikt
zwischen der RKL als solidarische Kraft mit den PalästinenserInnen
und der "Ökologischen Linken", die sich mit Israel solidarisiert,
aufmerksam. Die "Ökologische Linke" hatte diesen Konflikt
losgetreten, indem sie der RKL Rechtsextremismus unterstellte.
Auffällig war dabei, abgesehen von inhaltlichen Aspekten, vor allem
die Tatsache, dass die Beiträge der RKL, also der Gruppe, die
eigentlich angegriffen worden war, zumeist zusammen mit einer sofortigen
Reaktion der "Ökolinken" veröffentlicht wurden. D.h., die Beiträge
der RKL wurden der "Ökolinken" vor Veröffentlichung zugespielt,
damit diese noch im MUND des selben Tages versuchen konnte, die
Argumente der RKL anzugreifen und dieser möglichst das Wort im Mund
herumzudrehen. Schon damals habe ich mich gefragt, welche
Interpretation des Wortes "Fairneß" hier wohl im Spiel ist.
Zu dieser Zeit wurde von der RKL bzw. der ihr nahestehenden Bewegung
für soziale Befreiung übrigens auch versucht, eine Diskussion zu dem Thema zu
organisieren, was aber von "antinationaler" Seite abgelehnt wurde.
Jetzt, da der Konflikt erneut auszuarten droht, legt die Redaktion
des MUND wieder ein äußerst auffälliges Verhalten an den Tag.
Eine Reaktion von mir für die AIK auf Angriffe, die von einer
E-Mail-Adresse namens "roegi" aus gestartet worden waren, wurde, ohne dass
dieser in irgendeiner Weise in meinem Beitrag erwähnt worden wäre,
an den Journalisten Karl Pfeifer, einen bekannten
Israel-Smpathisanten, weitergeleitet und dann zusammen mit Pfeifers
Reaktion im MUND am 10.1.03 veröffentlicht. Die MUND-Red. konnte
also nicht einmal den nächsten Tag erwarten, an dem dann sowieso die
"roegi"-Reaktion kam. Es erfolgte eine neuerliche Reaktion meinerseits
und eine erneute Reaktion Pfeifers, die natürlich wieder gleich am
selben Tag veröffentlicht wurde und in der dieser einige Ereignisse
im Zusammenhang mit der Entstehung des Staates Israel aus meiner Sicht falsch
dargestellt hat und mir daneben auch noch unterstellt hat, ich hätte meine
jüdischen Vorfahren als Rechtfertigung für meine Ablehnung des
Staates Israel erfunden (Zitat Pfeifer: " Muss jetzt die in gewissen Wiener linken
Kreisen so beliebte "jüdische Großmutter" als Legitimation für seine
krausen Ansichten herhalten?").
Meine Antwort, in der ich klargestellt habe,
dass tatsächlich einige jüdischen Vorfahren von mir im KZ Theresienstadt ihr Ende gefunden
haben, und in der ich auch die von Pfeifer erwähnten Ereignisse in
Zshang mit der Entstehung Israels ins meiner Ansicht nach richtige
Licht gerückt habe, wurde dann nicht veröffentlicht, da sich die
MUND-Red. plötzlich darauf besonnen hatte, ja eigentlich keine
Beiträge zu I/P veröffentlichen zu wollen. Mittlerweile hat eine
MUND-Redakteurin im Rahmen einer privaten Diskussion via e-Mail mir
gegenüber immerhin eingestanden, dass das Verhalten der Redaktion am 10.1.
nicht in Ornung war und sie sich dafür einseten werde, dass die
Reaktion nächstes Mal nicht gleich zusammen mit dem Beitrag
veröffentlicht wird. Also kein Wort davon, dass es vielleicht auch
nicht gerade fair war, Pfeifer einen Beitrag, in dem er gar nicht
vorkam, überhaupt zur Stellungnahme zuzuspielen. Wenige Tage später
hat sich dann endgültig gezeigt, was von der Ankündigung, nächstes
Mal fairer vorzugehen, zu halten ist. Zunächst wurde ein massiver
Angriff des DÖW auf die AIK, der auch nicht gerade frei von I/P-Bezug
war, im MUND veröffentlicht. Ich habe dann sehr knapp reagiert, da ja im
MUND angeblich keine Beiträge zu I/P veröffentlicht werden und
I/P-Bezugnahme zur ausführlichen Beantwortung des DÖW-Angriffs
unerläßlich ist. Die MUND-Red. hat es daraufhin für nötig befunden,
den Beitrag des DÖW noch einmal zu widerholen, um damit sozusagen im
vorhinein meine Antwort zu beantworten. Dazu gab es auch noch eine
Denk-Anleitung der MUND-Redaktion, wie diese Maßnahme zu verstehen sei.
Der Gipfel war dann die de facto-Nichtveröffentlichung des eingangs
erwähnten ASt-Newsletters (MUND, 2.2.), in dem sich der ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt
mit der AIK solidarisierte. Es wurde vom MUND lediglich ein Verweis auf die
ASt-Homepage gebracht, der Text aber kam nicht in den MUND (trotz
Fehlanzeige bei wertendem I/P-Bezug).
Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass die MUND-Redaktion oder
zumindest einzelne ihrer Mitglieder bei der Selektion und der
Art der Veröffentlichung von Beiträgen kein großes Bemühen um
irgendeine Art von Fairneß erkennen lassen.
Gunter Kernert
mailto:turambar@aon.at

================================================
10 praktiken von "turambar"
From: "Claudia Volgger" <claudia.volgger@chello.at>
================================================
Mittlerweile hat eine
MUND-Redakteurin im Rahmen einer privaten Diskussion via e-Mail mir
gegenüber immerhin eingestanden, dass das Verhalten der Redaktion am
10.1.
nicht in Ornung war und sie sich dafür einseten werde, dass die
Reaktion nächstes Mal nicht gleich zusammen mit dem Beitrag
veröffentlicht wird. Also kein Wort davon, dass es vielleicht auch
nicht gerade fair war, Pfeifer einen Beitrag, in dem er gar nicht
vorkam, überhaupt zur Stellungnahme zuzuspielen.
ich hab dem gunter kernert, als er das beklagt hat, einfach mal geglaubt.
und befunden, tja, da hat er schon recht, das sollte nicht sein.
mittlerweile, bissl misstrauisch gewurden durch den ganzen aufruhr von
"verleumdung" bis "hetze" und retour, habe ich nachgesehen.
gute idee.
der pfeifer-beitrag hatte nämlich mit dem "turambar"-beitrag nicht das
geringste zu tun, war keine antwort darauf, war nur zum gleichen thema am
gleichen tag gekommen und daher in nachbarschaft veröffentlicht worden.
nix "zugespielt", nix "stellungnahme", nix dunkle gestalten, hinterlistige
verschwörungen...
nachlesbar unter www.no-racism.net/MUND/archiv/januar3/aussendung100103.htm
hm.
verständlicher irrtum, in der hitze des gefechts?
da ist aber noch was:
Auffällig war dabei, abgesehen von inhaltlichen Aspekten, vor allem
die Tatsache, dass die Beiträge der RKL, also der Gruppe, die
eigentlich angegriffen worden war, zumeist zusammen mit einer sofortigen
Reaktion der "Ökolinken" veröffentlicht wurden. D.h., die Beiträge
der RKL wurden der "Ökolinken" vor Veröffentlichung zugespielt,
damit diese noch im MUND des selben Tages versuchen konnte, die
Argumente der RKL anzugreifen und dieser möglichst das Wort im Mund
herumzudrehen. Schon damals habe ich mich gefragt, welche
Interpretation des Wortes "Fairneß" hier wohl im Spiel ist.
dazu hatte ich im gleichen privaten email auch etwas geschrieben, nämlich,
dass rkl (oder bsb, da war ich mir nicht mehr sicher) den gleichen "service"
angeboten bekommen, aber nicht genutzt hatten, und dass das die praxis der
red in fällen ist, in denen politische diskussionen ein wenig unter die
gürtellinie ausarten. das zitiert "turambar" aber nicht. klar, passt ja auch
nicht zu seiner jammertirade, und könnte die position der armen, verfolgten,
gehetzten, verleumdeten, einzig aufrichtigen freunde der "verdammten dieser
erde" (das buch sollte man lesen, nicht nur den titel zitieren. fanon sagt
da so einiges sehr klarsichtiges, das manche "antiimperialisten" vielleicht
ungern hören) womöglich schwächen.
schon klar, warum man das so macht. aber: wer so agiert, sollte sich imo mit
an andere gerichteten fairness-predigten ein klein wenig zurückhalten.
Die MUND-Red. hat es daraufhin für nötig befunden,
den Beitrag des DÖW noch einmal zu widerholen, um damit sozusagen im
vorhinein meine Antwort zu beantworten. Dazu gab es auch noch eine
Denk-Anleitung der MUND-Redaktion, wie diese Maßnahme zu verstehen sei.
das war nicht "die mund-red". das war die tagesred, nämlich ich.
ich fand einfach, dass in dieser zusammenstellung einiges sehr deutlich
wurde, wovon ich mir dachte, es könnte zumindest für
diskurs-theorie-interessierte ganz lustig sein.
ansonsten gehen mir, und ich wüsste wirklich gerne, wie das die lesas sonst
so sehen, diese antworten, die keine sind, diese retourkutschen und
aggressiven rechtfertigungsschleifen hauptsächlich auf die nerven. ich kann
die spaltungsvorwürfe von einer seite, die nicht begreift, wie sehr ihre
eigene praxis dazu angetan ist, leute zu verjagen, nicht mehr hören. (die
kann ich überhaupt schon lange nicht mehr hören. immer, wenn irgendwann
irgendwo in der linken irgendwer eine beobachtung macht, ein unbehagen
äussert, einen übersehenen aspekt der theorie oder praxis laut werden lässt,
finden sich diese gottverdammten besitzstandswahrer (seltener: Innen), diese
reaktionären knöpfe, die ihre wahrheit schon besitzen, nachdem sie sie brav
auswendig gelernt haben, und an allen anderen genau so weit interesse
aufbringen, wie die sich in irgendeine "front" zwingen lassen, also keines.
irgendwie frag ich mich schon auch, ob diese "solidarität" mit den
"verdammten dieser erde" ein stück weit auch davon lebt, dass die ärmsten
einfach keine wahl haben als zu nehmen, was immer kommt, und wenn es das
antiimperialistische letzte aufgebot ist.) ich bringe kaum mehr geduld auf
für diese taubheit dem gegenüber, was da vorgeworfen ist, und dieses sture
(und grausam idealistische) beharren, was man tue, sei völlig irrelevant
gegenüber dem, was man damit meine.
nazis vertreten verdammt ähnliche positionen wie leute, die sich als linke
(die letzten wahren) verstehen? pf, kann man vom tisch wischen, soll ja nur
emotional aufwühlen, der hinweis. nazis loben die antiimps? na und? wobei
das ernst gemeinte "argument", die nazis täten das ja nur, weil sie nach der
maxime vorgingen, der feind ihres feindes sei ihr freund, ja fast schon
wieder lieb ist in seiner doch erklecklichen einfalt. da möchte man sie dann
schon wieder fast in den arm nehmen, tröstend übers haar streichen und
bestätigen, ja, so sei es in der politik leider, man werde da nicht nur
unterstützt von denen, die einen ganz fest liebhaben oder ganz genau das
gleiche glauben wie man selbst...und diese einsicht ist ja auch ein anfang.
dann müsste es aber weiter gehen. dann müsste aber überlegt werden, welche
ziele man mit nazis (natürlich meint man es ganz anders als die) warum
teilt, welcher gemeinsame feind in den augen der rechtsextremen die
kleinigkeit, dass man selbst sie lieber verprügeln als mit ihnen marschieren
möchte, ohne weiteres aufwiegt, wie die kräfteverhältnisse verteilt sind,
welches interesse neonazis an "antiimperialistischen" bestrebungen haben
können. und was man unterlässt, was sie dran hindern könnte (denn die eine
oder andere distanzierung oder angedrohte prügel reichen da ganz
offensichtlich nicht).
das passiert aber nicht.
da kommt dann nur mehr der hinweis auf das gute, hehre und schöne, das man
eigentlich will und verfolgt, das ziel, und die frage, wie wahrscheinlich es
ist, dass ebendieses aus dem eigenen handeln resultieren könnte, entlarvt
die fragenden als agenten des klassenfeindes. oder der repression. oder der
verleumderischen, hetzenden antinationalen spaltercrew.
deprimierend.
die aik, die bsb, die rkl und wie sie alle heissen, bedienen in ihrer
agitation nicht nur antisemitische stereotypen und bilder, sie verbünden
sich auch mit einigen der reaktionärsten, menschenfeindlichsten,
rückständigsten, tyrannischsten und gewalttätigsten gruppierungen, die es im
augenblick ausserhalb der us-administration weltweit gibt. man nennt sie
trotzdem "linke", weil sie sich selbst als solche bezeichnen. warum sie das
tun, wird aus dem, was sie schreiben, manchmal etwas weniger deutlich. den
kampf für arme und/oder unterdrückte hat noch jede faschistische bewegung in
ihren anfängen zumindest auf ihre fahnen geschrieben. die meisten hatten
auch einen "linken flügel".
nein, ich glaube nicht, dass die aik, die bsb, die rkl und wie sie alle
heissen so ein linker flügel sein/werden möchten; wiewohl sie herzlich
eingeladen wurden. sie sind auch herzlich eingeladen, nochmal zu überdenken,
ob wirklich alle, die kritikwürdiges an ihrem agieren finden, blind, taub,
deppert oder überhaupt böse sind.

================================================
11 "antinationale" Hetze gegen AIK
From: turambar <turambar@aon.at>
================================================

Antiimperialismus heißt Antifaschismus - Keine Querfront!!
In den letzten Tagen wurde nicht nur die Antiimperialistische
Koordination
wieder von im Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes
beschäftigten antideutschen Exlinken als antisemitisch beschrieben,
nach einer Veröffentlichung eines anonymen Artikels auf einer obskuren
deutschnationalen homepage ("WNO") wurde auch ein Bündnis der radikalen Linken mit
Teilen der faschistischen Bewegung herbeifantasiert und damit objektiv
auch der Polizeirepression Vorschub geleistet.
Wir erklären dazu das folgende:
Die Anti-Opernball-Demonstration als Ausdruck einer gemeinsamen Front
zwischen Linken und Rechten gegen den die gemeinsamen "Hüter der
globalen Demokratie", nämlich die USA und ihre Verbündeten, darzustellen, wie es Heribert
Schiedel vom DÖW zu unterstellen versucht, ist mehr als
lächerlich und demonstriert, wie verzweifelt die Sharon-Apologeten
die Anti-Kriegs-Bewegung und die Palästina-Solidarität zu verleumden versuchen.
Die OrganisatorInnen der Demonstration kommen allesamt aus dem linken Antifaschismus
und das wissen die exlinken, "antinationalen" Wendehälse auch,
denn sie gehörten vor 89-91 dieser Bewegung selbst an. Für alle
AntifaschistInnen ist die Lehre aus dem Faschismus allerdings, jegliche neue rassistische
Unterdrückung zu bekämpfen, in welchem Gewande sie auch immer
auftreten möge: daher richtet sich das Anti-Opernball-Bündnis konsequent
gegen den Krieg gegen den Irak, gegen die antiislamische Hetze
sowie für das Recht der PalästinenserInnen auf Selbstbestimmung.
Weiters scheint dem Provokateur entgangen zu sein, dass die Antiimperialistische
Koordination (AIK), wie auch die RKL, nicht dem Bündnis angehört.
Trotzdem erklären wir uns selbstverständlich mit den GenossInnen
solidarisch gegen die erbärmlichen Angriffe aus dem "antinationalen"
Eck bzw. vom unter "antinationalem" Einfluß stehenden DÖW.
Der Versuch, das Demobündnis als für Rechte attraktiv darzustellen, spottet jeder Beschreibung und
zeugt nur ein weiteres Mal davon, dass die "Antinationalen"
bei ihrem einzigen wirklichen Projekt, nämlich dem, die Linke zu spalten,
keinerlei Grenzen mehr kennen.
Ganz abgesehen von der grundlegenden Tatsache, dass zu einer Front
zumindest zwei gehören. Wenn Rechte mit dem spekulieren sollten, dann haben wir
ihnen mit nachstehender Erklärung vom 20. Juli 2001 schon lange eine Abfuhr
erteilt:
Antiimperialismus heißt Antifaschismus
Antiimperialismus heißt echter Internationalismus, heißt Kampf für die
Freundschaft zwischen den Völkern, heißt Solidarität mit den
ausgebeutetsten Teilen der Gesellschaft. Und das sind gerade die
Arbeitsimmigranten, die der Imperialismus zum Massenexodus in den Westen zwingt. Niemals werden
wir ein Bündnis mit Rassisten eingehen, niemals können Rassisten
Antiimperialisten sein. Das Bündnis muss mit den Verdammten dieser Erde geschlossen
werden, sie sind die einzige Kraft die dem Kapitalismus den Garaus machen
können.
Die Antiimperalistische Koordination steht in der Tradition eines kämpferischen
proletarischen Antifaschismus. Dass wir in der aktuellen Periode den
liberalen Imperialismus für den Hauptfeind halten und nicht die extreme
Rechte, tut dem keinen Abbruch.
Ein deutscher Antisemit - und jeder der mit ihm zusammenarbeitet - ist
nicht unser Verbündeter, sondern unser Feind. Wer an einem Tag für Palästina
demonstriert und das restliche Jahr Jagd auf Ausländer (darunter auch
Araber und Palästinenser) macht, ist nicht unser Verbündeter, sondern unser
Feind - und zwar das ganze Jahr.
(Erklärung Ende)
Vielmehr zeigt sich eine Zusammenarbeit der "Antinationalen" mit der
extremen Rechten:
Die "Antideutschen" haben am 9. November, dem Gedenktag an die
"Reichskristallnacht", - nicht zum ersten Mal - gemeinsam mit der
rechtsradikalen, nationalreligösen israelischen Organisation Bnei Akiva demonstriert
(Haupsächlich zum Zweck der Spaltung der traditionellen, linken Gedenkkundgebung am
Aspangbahnhof, zu deren Unterstützung man/frau offenbar nicht in der Lage
war).

================================================
12 Anmerkung Tagesred
From: 9705722@gmx.net
================================================

Der Beitrag >> "antinationale" Hetze gegen AIK << wurde um den Anhang mit einseitigem Israel/Palästina-Bezug gekürzt, da dieser keinerlei neue Standpunkte oder Argumente, sondern nur die Wiederholung der schon bekannten Diskussionsansätze bzw. ewig gleichen Pöbeleien zum Thema beinhaltet und daher - für mich - keine erkenntliche Widerstandsrelevanz mehr besitzt.

================================================

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><
SOLIDARITÄT WELTWEIT
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><

================================================
13 The Zapatistas Break Their Silence, When Will the Media Break Theirs?
From: "RAWNEWS" <rawnews@btopenworld.com>
================================================

The Zapatistas Break Their Silence, When Will the Media Break Theirs?
The Nation - by Tom Hayden - January 28, 2003

The Zapatista rebels in Chiapas defiantly broke nearly two years of
self-imposed silence by taking over the streets of San Cristóbal de las
Casas as the New Year began. More than 20,000 of Mexico's indigenous people,
some traveling on foot for fifteen hours, poured into the plaza of the
ancient colonial city. It was the equivalent of 100,000 of New York City's
poorest people marching to Gracie Mansion from the farthest boroughs. The
town's comfortable classes shuddered behind their shutters while thousands
of machetes rang "like bells" and torches and bonfires lit the New Year's
sky. Comandantes with colorful names ranging from "Esther" and "Mister" to
"Bruce Lee" declared their determination to "globalize rebelliousness and
dignity" against those who "are globalizing death."

This historic march went virtually unremarked in the US media. Apparently,
many reporters and critics assumed that the Zapatista's prolonged media
silence meant that the movement was finished. Mexican President Vicente Fox
exploited the silence on several occasions to assure global investors that
order was restored in Chiapas.

The San Cristóbal march reflected a considerable organizational achievement.
Mayan communities have been destabilized by economic crisis, repression and
violence over the past decade. Shantytown refugees have swollen the
population of San Cristóbal to some 150,000, an increase of 500 percent
since the 1970s. "In some Chiapas villages, the only residents are women,
children and old men" because hundreds of coffee farmers are forced to
migrate monthly, according to the chronicler John Ross. For the first time,
gangs and graffiti are beginning to appear. Tens of thousands of Mexican
troops continue to occupy the highlands and displace villages. Yet the
Zapatista march showed the insurgents to be well organized and intact.

What explains the Zapatistas' prolonged silence? It seems to be an Indian
custom the Zapatistas have incorporated. "In silence, the word is sown. So
that it may flower shouting, it goes quiet," proclaimed a 1996 Zapatista
declaration. The silence followed a peak of struggle in early 2001, when
hundreds of thousands caravaned to Mexico City in hopes of influencing the
government to guarantee Indian rights of self-determination. During the
subsequent silence, the Zapatistas returned to local organizing in the
nearly forty "autonomous municipalities" they represent in Chiapas. They
also undertook a painstaking assessment of the Mexican situation, concluding
that the whole economy was becoming one big maquiladora since NAFTA, with
government plans for a free-trade zone, called the Plan Panama de Puebla,
running through the very heartland of Zapatista resistance. On January 1,
NAFTA was expanded further, with more tariffs lifted on North American
imports of wheat, rice, pork and poultry.

The lifting of those tariffs expanded the growing resistance to NAFTA, which
has been an economic disaster for Mexicans. While never mentioning or
crediting the Zapatistas' warnings, New York Times headlines last year told
the story: "In Corn's Cradle, US Imports Bury Family Farms" (February 26),
"Free Market Upheaval Grinds Mexico's Middle Class" (September 4), "NAFTA to
Open Floodgates, Engulfing Rural Mexico" (December 19). In the year 2000,
half the Mexican population existed on $4 per day. The maquila industry,
once marketed as the cure for joblessness, suffered a 21 percent decline in
2002, with 287,000 jobs disappearing.

The situation will become increasingly unmanageable as long as Washington
insists on worshiping the gods of the free market with the same fervor that
Hernan Cortés once brandished the Holy Cross. The accompanying silence of
the North American media indirectly assists la guerra de baja intensidad
(low-intensity warfare), which is the preferred strategy of the Mexican Army
and its Pentagon suppliers. Also unreported was the Mexican government's
seizure in December of ten tons of medical supplies and computers destined
for Chiapas from religious groups in the United States and Canada.

The only news of the Zapatistas apparently fit to print in the New York
Times was a January 1 report of rumors that never materialized. The Times's
Tim Weiner wrote that Western embassy officials were urging tourists to flee
an American-owned retreat ranch near Ocosingo that is listed as one of the
top ten destinations in Mexico, according to the Lonely Planet tourist
guide. The Zapatistas were allegedly planning to seize the charming resort.
It could have been quite an international drama, but it turned out that the
Zapatistas were only opposed to expanding the resort. Weiner also reported
an "unconfirmed" rumor that the Zapatistas would seize a bridge over the
Usumacinta River where a planned hydroelectric dam will flood indigenous
communities and Mayan sites. But Weiner chose not to report the only event
that actually happened: the march on San Cristóbal.

Weiner did report a war of words that broke out over the plight of Basques
in Spain, between Subcomandante Marcos and a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón.
Marcos alienated much of his intended audience by calling Garzón "a
grotesque clown" for his harsh crackdown on Basque separatists. The judge,
well-known for his legal pursuit of the former dictator Augusto Pinochet,
challenged Marcos to a debate without his mask. Mexican intellectuals
including Carlos Fuentes and Carlos Monsiváis condemned Marcos for being
soft on Basque terrorism. The duel escalated as Marcos proposed the Canary
Islands as a site and called on the Basque separatists to adopt a unilateral
truce. Then the Basques criticized Marcos for not informing them of his
initiative. Perhaps it was an unintended squabble, although Marcos views the
Basques as the equivalent in Spain of the Indians in Mexico, and has written
fables in which a beetle named Durito plans to invade Spain in a sardine can
to reverse the Conquest. By January the war of words had faded. But the
invisible conflict was escalating.

================================================
14 [cuadpupdate] COLUMBIA ACCIDENT STATEMENT
From: "Abraham J. Bonowitz" <abe@cuadp.org>
================================================
An OFF-TOPIC commentary. If you don't want to read this rare comment about
a non-death penalty issue, delete now. Thanks!
Hi Folks,
I am sure I'm like everyone in sharing the sense of disbelief and loss at
the space shuttle accident yesterday. But I have to admit that it didn't
take long for me to see the silver lining in this accident: However
briefly, it will slow down the militarization of space. I urge people to
consider the fact that the US Space Command's "Vision for [the year] 2020"
expressly calls for US dominance in space due to "the growing disparities
between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. The question I ask: "are YOU a
"HAVE," or are YOU a "HAVE NOT?" Hmmm....
Unfortunately, the Columbia disaster gives us the chance to discuss the
issues that no one wants to talk about when everything is working just
fine. And with that, I forward the following statement from the Global
Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power In Space. Bruce Gagnon and others
in the network are supporters of CUADP and FADP, and today I feel it is not
only relevant, but necessary, to share with you the concerns that that
group has.
In peace,
--abe
***************
COLUMBIA ACCIDENT STATEMENT
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083
Gainesville, FL 32607
(352) 337-9274
<http://www.space4peace.org>http://www.space4peace.org
<mailto:globalnet@mindspring.com>globalnet@mindspring.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bruce Gagnon (352)
337-9274 <mailto:globalnet@mindspring.com>globalnet@mindspring.com
Karl Grossman (631) 725-2858 kgrossman@hamptons.com
Loring Wirbel (719) 481-3698 lwirbel@aol.com
In mourning the tragedy of the Columbia shuttle, the Global Network Against
Weapons & Nuclear Power In Space stresses that it came as NASA has been
moving to greatly expand its program to use nuclear power in space and
underscores why deadly atomic materials must not be used in space
operations.
In what it calls Project Prometheus, NASA seeks to broaden its $1 billion
Nuclear Systems Initiative begun last year and include development of a
nuclear-propelled rocket.
Moreover, NASA is planning for additional nuclear-powered space probe
launches and to put atomic power to other space uses, noted Global Network
Coordinator Bruce Gagnon.
"While Columbia did not appear to have a nuclear payload on-board, consider
the consequences if a rocket powered by a nuclear reactor came down in
pieces over Texas or elsewhere on earth," said Professor Karl Grossman,
professor of journalism at the State University of New York and author of
"The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat To Our Planet,"
narrator of "Nukes In Space" television documentaries and a Global Network
board member.
In coming months-in May and June -- NASA intends to launch from Florida two
rockets both carrying rovers to land on Mars, rovers that are equipped with
plutonium-powered heaters. The Global Network has been conducting
demonstrations to protest these launches.
Gagnon points out that NASA's own Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) says
that "the overall chance of an accident occurring" for each launch "is
about 1 in 30" and "the overall chance of any accident that releases
radioactive materials to the environment is about one in 230. "People
offsite in the downwind direction...could inhale small quantities of radio
nuclides" the NASA EIS says.
"These are high odds for disaster which could impact -as NASA admits- on
people as far as 60 miles from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida," said
Gagnon.
"These and other NASA space shots involving materials must be cancelled in
the wake of the Columbia disaster and safe space energy systems be used
instead," stressed Gagnon.
Said Grossman: "Space exploration is dangerous but to include nuclear
poisons in the equation makes any accident far, far more deadly-and it is
unnecessary. In recent years there have been breakthroughs in energizing
space systems safely especially through the use of solar technologies. But
NASA under Director Sean O'Keefe is partnering with nuclear interests to
heavily nuclearize U.S. space operations. The Columbia disaster must show
us the awful folly of this atomic space path."
In recent years Congress has cut funding for the space program (in
particular funding for shuttle maintenance) and NASA has turned to the
Pentagon for financing of many of its missions. NASA's O'Keefe said upon
taking the helm of the space agency that all future missions will be dual
use - with the military now in control of the space program.
Loring Wirbel, a technical editor and Global Network board member based in
Colorado, stressed that "the shuttle accident occurring on re-entry, which
is always been touted as much safer than launch, should serve as proof that
NASA's planned nuclear propulsion program is far too dangerous to be
considered."
Also, "the hazards involved in aggressive space use also suggest that
broader military use of space for first strike warfare or weapons in space
is a dangerous game," said Wirbel.
- END -
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083
Gainesville, FL 32607
(352) 337-9274
<http://www.space4peace.org>http://www.space4peace.org
<mailto:globalnet@mindspring.com>globalnet@mindspring.com

************

SENT BY

Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director, CUADP
********************************************************
YES FRIENDS!
There is an Alternative to the Death Penalty
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
(CUADP) works to end the death penalty in the United
States through aggressive campaigns of public education
and the promotion of tactical grassroots activism.
Visit <http://www.cuadp.org> or call 800-973-6548

================================================
15 South Africa urges Africa to back anti-war stance on Iraq
From: "RAWNEWS" <rawnews@btopenworld.com>
================================================
South Africa urges Africa to back anti-war stance on Iraq

Agence France-Presse
February 1, 2003

South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma urged her
continental counterparts to back UN efforts to avoid a US-led war on
Iraq, warning conflict could bring disaster.

Military attacks on oil-rich Iraq would have "very serious
repercussions for all of us," Dlamini-Zuma told fellow foreign
ministers gathered in the Ethiopian capital to prepare for next
week's summit of the new African Union.

"We must continue to support the efforts of the UN Security Council
to try to avoid a war and at the same time disarm Iraq of any mass
destruction weapons, if they have any, and urge them to cooperate,"
she said.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was Saturday taking a similar
message to Britain, where he was due to meet Prime Minister Tony
Blair, US President George Bush's strongest ally in potential
military action against Iraq.

Dlamini-Zuma said a war against President Saddam Hussein's regime
would undermine global security, "complicate the situation and the
peace process in the Middle East (and have) a very big economic
impact for most countries".

A number of top South African officials, from Mbeki to Trade and
Industry Minister Alec Erwin, have in the past week voiced concern
not only about the blow they say unilateral US action against Iraq
would deal to world peace, but also badly harm a pan-African
economic recovery plan.

"Most countries will be in serious difficulties," Dlamini-Zuma said,
warning that spiralling oil prices could rise even further. "We need
peace, not war."

South Africa current holds the presidency of the 53-member AU, which
took shape at a summit in Durban last year replacing the post-
colonial Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The first full summit
of the continental body will be held in Addis Ababa on Monday and
Tuesday.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Thursday added his
voice to criticism of "arrogant behaviour" by the United States,
saying that "all Bush wants is Iraqi oil" and suggesting that this
would be the motivation for possible action against Baghdad
without full UN backing.

"Bush is acting outside the United Nations and both he and Tony Blair
are undermining the United Nations, an organisation which was an idea
sponsored by their predecessors," Mandela said.

Blair met Bush on Friday to discuss the next steps in the campaign,,
after which Bush said he would welcome a new UN resolution on the
crisis "if it is yet another signal that we're intent upon disarming
(Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein".

A potential Gulf War and its impact on Africa were far from the only
items facing foreign ministers as they went Saturday into a closed-
door pre-summit session after the opening remarks.

The interim chairman of the AU Commission, Amara Essy, told ministers
that "you are called upon to study the architecture of the African
Union. Building the Union is an ongoing process which will be pursued
from generation to generation."

The summit participants will next week consider amendments to the
AU's constituent acts, to strengthen the body and give it more clout
than the old OAU.

Dlamini-Zuma also told ministers that they should be looking at
the "major challenges" in the continent presented by crises such as
the risk of all-out war in Essy's Ivory Coast, where a French-
brokered deal to end four months of rebellion at the weekend teetered
on the verge of collapse.

She also seized on the occasion to "congratulate the great socialist
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on its election as chair of the current
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights".

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was a moving force behind the
transformation of the OAU into the AU, though his African peers would
not go as far as taking up his grandiose dream of creating a "United
States of Africa".

================================================
16 RAWNEWS on Latin America - 2/1/03
From: "RAWNEWS" <rawnews@btopenworld.com>
================================================

RAWNEWS on Latin America - 2/1/03

1) COLOMBIA: URGENT ACTION: Death threats against Andy Higginbottom
2) CSC Delegation to Cali. Colombia Appeal
3) Four indigenous Kuna leaders assasinated by Colombian paramilitaries - La Prensa
4) Chavez moves toward nationalization of agriculture in Venezuela - AFP
5) COMMENT: Venezuela government to distribute million acres to peasants - Fred Feldman
6) Miami conspiracy to attack Venezuela - Granma International
7) Rebel Venezuelan officer training US-Cuban mercenaries in Florida's Everglades - V Headline
8) Culture and the challenges of the contemporary world - Rebelion (Madrid)
9) Left Turns in South America: United Opposition to Neoliberalism in Bolivia? - Tricenter.com-Latin America

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COLOMBIA: URGENT ACTION: Death threats against Andy Higginbottom

The Colombia Solidarity Campaign strongly denounces the events of Friday, January 31st in London, England, and call on trade unionist, human rights workers, and individuals to send messages of concern.

The Events

1. At 4.00am on Friday 31st of January Andy Higginbottom, Coordinator of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign left his house to travel to Bogota, Colombia. He had been invited to Cali, Colombia, as a representative of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign to accompany SINTRAEMCALI workers in their recent conflict with the Colombian government over the possible 'privatisation' of the Municipal Enterprises of Cali (EMCALI EICE).
2. At about 4.30am his wife received a phonecall. The caller asked "Is this Andy's house", and when she replied "Yes", the caller (a male) said "Andy will die soon". About 5 minutes later the same caller rang back and said "We're going to get Andy".
5. She has reported the events to the police, who are investigating the source of the call.
6. It should be noted that Andy Higginbottom and the Colombia Solidarity Campaign had organised a picket outside the Colombian Embassy in Knightsbridge, London on Wednesday, January the 29th. At this event Andy Higginbottom spoke with the an embassy assistant, and informed her that two members of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign would be going to Cali. The following day he emailed the assistant with details of the flight arrangements and passport details.
7. SINTRAEMCALI, is the Municipal Workers Trade Union of the Public Enterprises of Cali, which represents workers in the state owned provider of electricity, water and telecommunication in Cali, Colombia. It has been
engaged in several years of resistance to Colombian government attempts to privatise the company. During that period 8 members of the union have been assassinated, many displaced from the city and country, and many other have received death threats by mail and telephone.
8. The Colombia Solidarity Campaign is a human rights and solidarity organisation which works with Colombian trade union and social organisations to promote respect for human rights, and peace based on
social justice.

Action:

1) Please send letters, faxes, and emails calling on the Colombian Government to safeguard the Human Rights of Andy Higginbottom and other members of the Colombian Solidarity Campaign present in Colombia, and all those individuals and organisations involved in the defence of EMCALI EICE who are exercising their internationally ratified human rights of collective organisation, right to assembly, and freedom of thought.

Send urgent messages of protest to:
Presidente de la Republica de Colombia
Dr. Alvaro Uribe Velez
Palacio de Narino, Carrera 8 No.7-26 Santafe de Bogota, COLOMBIA
Fax: 00 57 1 286 74 34/286, 68 42/284 21 86
E-mail: auribe@presidencia.gov.co; rdh@presidencia.gov.co

Vicepresidente de la Republica de Colombia
Francisco Santos Consejeria Presidential de Derechos Humanos
Calle 7, No 654, Piso 3 Santafe de Bogota, COLOMBIA
Fax: 00 57 1 337 1351
E-mail: mdn@cable.net.co; infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co; siden@mindefensa.gov.co

Ministro del Interior y Justicia
Fernando Londono Hoyos Ministerio del Interior y Justicia
Palacio Echeverry, Carrera 8a, No.8-09, piso 2o., Santafe de Bogota, Colombia
Fax:00 57 1 286 8025
E-mail: mininterior@myrealbox.com;

With Copies to:

British Consulate, Cali, Colombia britaincali@uniweb.net.co
British Embassy, Bogota Political.Bogot@fco.gov.uk
Colombian Embassy (UK): mail@colombianembassy.co.uk
Bill Rammell MP Under Secretary of State Foreign Office james.morrison@fco.gov.uk
CUT Human Rights Department: derechoshumanos@cut.org.co
Colombia Solidarity Campaign (UK) colombia_sc@hotmail.com

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

CSC Delegation to Cali. Colombia Appeal

FINANCIAL APPEAL

The Colombia Solidarity Campaign is throwing itself into emergency solidarity actions. We are sending two observers to Cali and we are incurring many other costs in responding to the emergency in Colombia. For example two more Campaign members are joining the International Trade Union delegation invited by the CUT and CGTD in solidarity with the oilworkers union USO. We appeal to all our affilaites, individual members and supporters to make a special donation to help us do this work. Make cheques payable to "Colombia Solidarity Campaign", and send to Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ.

Thank you.

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MISSED IT, MARIO's ARTICLE IN TODAY's MORNING STAR

CALI: ONE YEAR ON AND STILL FIGHTING

Morning Star readers will recall the heroic occupation by Colombian workers of the 17-storey CAM tower in Cali last January. Their aim, in common with workers across the globe, was tp prevent the privatisation of public services.
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the victorious 36-day takeover of public service provider EMCALI's central office in the South-West Colombian city.
The position of SINTRAEMCALI, the trade union representing electricity, telecommuniication and water workers in the company, was clear from the beginning: this was not a struggle in defence of working conditions, nor even jobs, but an occupation in defence of public services, fair prices for Cali s consumers, and an end to the corruption by politically appointed managers who for many years had bled the country dry.
It was also a struggle in defence of national resources and national pride: despite government claims that the company was no longer financially viable, there was a string of multinational corporations waiting in the wings to buy up the vast water resources of the region, and control the market for electricity, water, and telecommunications to the one and a half million consumers in the city and its surrounds.
The one-year anniversary should have been marked by celebrations. The agreement that was signed by the Colombian government ratified all of the union s demands: no price increases for one year, no privatisation of the company, a high level anti-corruption inquiry into management practices, and an agreement to carry on with a SINTRAEMCALI led Company Salvation Plan which had been reducing corruption and improving services in the year leading up to the occupation.
But this is Colombia, a country where despite government claims in International Forums that it is the oldest democracy in Latin America, is run by a handful of wealthy families allied with Multinational Corporations who continue as they have done for decades: denying basic human rights to its citizens, and brutally repressing all resistance. So it was, that one-week prior to planned celebrations the government announced that they will no longer comply with the agreement and will sell the company off.
January the 29th, 2003 has become instead, in the words of Luis Hernandez Monroy, the union s president " an appointment with history, part of the social struggle of our people. The best way forward it to show that despite the terror we will continue coming out onto the streets and we will keep on demonstrating. We await you all."
His comments are drawn from a communiqué sent out to union s members and distributed in the poorest neighbourhoods calling for a mass mobilisation to mark the signing of the agreement one short year ago. The terror that the union s president talks of is very real; trade unionists are a dying race in Colombia, with over 3800 assassinated in the last 15 years. SINTRAEMCALI, in its struggle against privatisation has likewise paid a very heavy price with 8 activists assassinated, many more forcibly displaced, and countless others in constant fear of their lives. The union s leadership are forced to have 24-hour bodyguards to protect them, and friends and family members live in constant fear of their lives.
So who is killing trade unionist in Colombia, and why? According to both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, trade unionists are being assassinated by paramilitary death squads, who are linked to the Colombian military.
The reason why is because despite the fear and intimidation, the Colombian trade union movement continues to resist the imposition of a neo-liberal economic model that seeks both to privatise and to strip away the last vestiges of social protection: pensions, minimum salaries, emergency health care, and education from a population where 60% live in poverty. In their resistance to neo-liberal economic policies they are not alone: across Colombia social movements of community activists, peasants, students, and women s organisations are fighting back, and they too are being threatened, harassed, assassinated and disappeared.
The situation worsened in May of last year when Alvaro Urribe was elected president. Urribe came to power pledging that he would end the long running Colombian civil war militarily. But this is not just a Colombian affair, but a much broader neo-liberal economic project driven by multinational corporations and US military power. Popular resistance to this project has spread across the region with mass movements in Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere that is refusing to bow down to the dictates of the market. In Colombia, US military strategy crystallised in the now infamous Plan Colombia, which on the pretext of a War on Drugs granted billions of US dollars in aid to the Colombian military to eliminate the armed guerrilla opposition of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) who jointly control over 50% of the nation s territory.
In the Post September 11th world, the rhetoric shifted from the war on drugs to the war on terror , and the green light was given to Colombia by the US and their Western allies to intensify the repression against their own people. Urribe has become Bush s man in Latin America and is widening the scope of US intervention.
In classic US counterinsurgency doctrine, this is not a war fought against the armed guerrilla, but more so aimed at terrorising the local population who supposedly hide and protect them. "Removing the water from the fish". It is a tried and tested technique used from Vietnam to El Salvador with devastating effect, and all those Colombians seeking to challenge the dictates of the US/World Bank/IMF trinity are labelled as subversives and targeted directly by the state or by the paramilitary death squads that it has allowed to prosper and grow.
Struggles against privatisation are just as much a threat, if not more so, then armed guerrilla movements and thus SINTRAEMCALI in its defence of public resources has thus become a thorn in the governments side, not least because in the 36 day occupation it managed to build a broad alliance across the city and beyond in defence of the public . During the occupation the Cali community marched, demonstrated, blocked off roads, and constantly surrounded the occupied CAM Tower, providing a necessary cordon of physical, social and political protection for the hundreds of workers inside.
This cordon of protection was not limited to the local area, and a range of international solidarity organisations, human rights organisations, International Trade Unions and activists showed solidarity with SINTRAEMCALI both through sending delegations, writing letters of protest to the Colombian government calling for a peaceful negotiated solution to the conflict, and a whole range of other activities. In the UK, the British based Colombia Solidarity Organisation organised pickets outside the Colombian embassy in London and sent delegates to the city. The British NGO War on Want supported solidarity actions. UNISON, the FBU, ASLEF and the TUC organised a live video link-up with Cali workers, and met several times with the Colombian ambassador in the UK to voice their concerns.
They also linked up with the ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the PSI (Public Services International) to put pressure at higher levels of the Colombian government to ensure a peaceful outcome. Since the signing of the agreement several delegations have visited Cali to show solidarity with the union s struggle, the most recent organised by Public Services International to commemorate International Human Rights Day, December the 10th, and to launch an anti-privatisation booklet that chronicles the events of the occupation.
Today, those very same SINTRAEMCALI workers are again occupying their workplaces and trying desperately to hold on to the gains of 2002. In order to do so they are calling on the British Labour movement, political activists, human rights activists and ordinary people to demonstrate their solidarity through concrete actions, letter writing, international solidarity delegations, and financial contributions. In an increasingly globalised world, the destinies of ordinary working people are intertwined, and privatisation processes and government cutbacks are infamous the world over.
Solidarity is also a global phenomenon as ordinary people increasingly see other people s struggles as their own. It is also a two way street. SINTRAEMCALI sent a message of support to the Fire Brigades Union, which was read out at the end of the London march in December to great applause; now it is our turn again to join hands with our Colombian brothers and sisters and show them that they are not alone.
Mario Novelli is a member of the Colombian Solidarity Campaign

Copies of A 30 minute SINTRAEMCALI video charting the 36-day occupation The Tower of Victory are available in English and Spanish, and can be obtained from colombia_sc@hotmail.com

CORRECTIONS TO URGENT ACTION SENT OUT THIS MORNING
There was a wrong translation. The paragraph under point 8 which read:
"At the same time CAMILO TORRES who is the Supervisor of the CAM Tower, was summonsed by some police agents. Some wives had gone there [to escape the attack?]. Then they left and CAMILO was put under the orders of COLONEL SUAREZ who drove him to FRAY DAMIÁN police station. Several workers, lawyers and human rights defenders from NOMADESC and the Solidarity Committee with Political Prisoners went there."
should have read:
"At the same time CAMILO TORRES who is the Supervisor of the CAM Tower, was summonsed by some police agents and put him in handcuffs. Then they were removed and CAMILO was put under the orders of COLONEL SUAREZ who drove him to FRAY DAMIÁN police station. Several workers, lawyers and human rights defenders from NOMADESC and the Solidarity Committee with Political Prisoners went there."
Messages of protest
In addition to the e-mail addresses supplied in the original Urgent Action, messages should also be sent to
Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos sspd@superservicios.gov.co
and copied to:
SINTRAEMCALI sintraemcali@yahoo.com

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Four indigenous Kuna leaders assasinated by Colombian paramilitaries
on Panama border and two US and one Canadian reporters kidnapped

Translated by ASEJ/ACERCA

From La Prensa, Panama 1/21/03
http://www.prensa.com/hoy/portada/853397.html

Fear and Pain in Paya, Attack Leaves Four Dead

Four Kuna indigenous authorities were assassinated this weekend and
two US and one Canadian reporter were kidnapped by a Colombian
paramilitary group that attacked the villages of Paya and Pucuro, in
the Darien, this past weekend. A group of 150 paramilitaries
assassinated the leaders of the Kuna Paya village Ernesto Ayala,
mayor; San Pascual Ayala, second mayor, and Luis Enrique Martínez,
village commissioner. One of the US reporters is Robert Pelton of the
Discovery Channel.

According to local witness Luis Caicedo, "We found three corpses
chopped up by machetes with bullets in their head in the mountains so
we couldn't take the corpses back because the land was still being
guarded by the paramilitaries."

Gilberto Vasquez, mayor of Pucuro, was also murdered. His body was
found with a bullet in the back of his head inside his house in the
village.

This same paramilitary brigade had captured, just hours before, the
US Discovery Channel reporter Robert Pelton and two other reporters,
Marc Wedever of Canada, and another US journalist that is
unidentified.

Migdonio Batista, a correspondent for the radio station Voices
without Borders of the Darien, who resides in Paya indicated that the
paramilitaries, in addition to killing the village authorities,
robbed all of the belongings of the only radio station office in the
village. He also said that the armed paramilitaries robbed the
chickens, ducks and pigs and murdered the dogs. Upon leaving the
village they dropped explosives in local trucks so that they could
get away without being followed.

Another resident, Victor Maritinez, explained that since last
Saturday afternoon, when they were attacked by the Colombian
paramilitaries, the residents have not eaten anything and have only
drank water from the river. Also, as of 48 hours after the weekends
murders the National Police had not arrived with any help or
protection. The "Prensa" newspaper confirmed that as of two days
after the attack there was still no response from the border patrol.
Isidro Ayala, whose father was assassinated in this attack, explained
that the indigenous had to confront the paramilitaries with bows and
arrows and with wooden beams to defend their property and families
"because there hasn't been any police in this place for two years."
Paya is a community with 530 indigenous residents located in the
mountains of Pinogana and about 2 hours from the Colombian border.
After the attack, there was only 50 residents remaining in Paya. The
rest of the town was seeking refuge in the Boca de Cupe community or
in the nearby mountains. Pucuro, a close by village, was entirely
abandoned by its 20 residents. The paramilitaries arrived in Pucuro,
burnt 5 houses down, and after finding no residents assassinated
Gilberto Vasquez, who had been taken prisoner in Paya.

ACERCA/ASEJ received this action alert from The Kuna Youth Indigenous
Movement asking for international solidarity to conndemn the violence
of Plan Colombia that has contributed to this murder of indigenous
leaders in Panama. We translated the artilce from
http://www.prensa.com/hoy/portada/853397.html
brendan@asej.org

What you can do?
1) Please circulate this article far and wide to inform people of
this violence of Plan Colombia leading to the death of 4 Kuna
Indigenous Leaders in Panama.
2) Stay tuned for follow-up messages and action alerts
3) Stop the violence in Colombia, by getting involved with the March
23rd/24th Colombia Mobilization (http://www.colombiamobilization.org)
and the April 10th-15th Latin American Solidarity Coalition
(http://lasolidarity.org)

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Chavez moves toward nationalization of agriculture in Venezuela;
Chavez government cool to proposal to end Venezuela strike.

CARACAS, 30 January 2002. AFP -- Saying he wants to "deepen the
economic revolution" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that
his government would seize state-owned agricultural storage
facilities used by private businesses and redistribute idle land. The
leftist-populist president said Thursday he was determined to
"transform the socioeconomic model and its structures."
In a speech to a group of farmers and food producers, Chavez said his
government would create a state-owned corporation to control food
storage and production of fertilizer. He also promised to
redistribute one million hectares of idle land to needy farmers, and
require banks to provide loans to finance cultivation of that land.
Earlier, Chavez's government reacted coolly to an opposition proposal
to end the strike, with a top official neither endorsing nor
rejecting the plan.
"The fact that we respect all the actions within the constitution to
obtain the goals of one sector of the nation does not mean the
government must endorse the initiative," Foreign Minister Roy
Chaderton told Union Radio.
The government "has no interest in undoing itself, either by seeking
early elections or by any change of government even within the
constitutional framework."
Chaderton's comments were the first official reaction to an opposition
proposal for a constitutional amendment shortening Chavez's mandate
and scheduling early elections, along with the reinstatement of fired
executives of the state-owned oil company, a key battleground of the
strike which began December 2.
Ali Rodriguez, president of Petroleos de Venezuela, said 5,100 of the
company's more than 38,000 employees had been fired. Chavez wants
prosecutors to file criminal charges against sacked employees who have
led the strike.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Venezuela government to distribute million acres to peasants
From Fred Feldman

The headline chosen by Agence France Presse for the item above, "Chavez
moves toward nationalization of agriculture in Venezuela" is completely
false and misleading.

The government is planning to take over about 1 million acres of UNUSED
LAND held by big landlords and corporations. They will do so under the terms
of the agrarian reform law adopted some time ago. The land is to be
distributed to landless and land-starved peasants and also to those among
the poor who wish to become peasant producers in the countryside. The small
farmers will have all rights to this land except, if the land is or remains
nationalized, they may lose the "right" to "sell" it, that is, to be driven
off their land for debt. "Agriculture," the product of the peasants' labor,
will belong to the individual producers and will not be nationalized.

And the government is taking over formally STATE-OWNED storage facilties
that have been used as private fiefdoms, like the "nationalized" oil
company, for local capitalists and landlords. This will not only cut the
ability of the capitalist opposition to starve the cities, buit it will
break the dependency of the peasants, who support the revolution, on the de
facto owners of these state facilities, who oppose the Bolivarian and also
use their position to exploit the peasants. "Agriculture," the product of
the peasants' labor, will continue to belong to the individual producers.

The proposals to make easier for peasants to obtain loans and to create a
state company to produce fertiliazer will also strengthen the position of
the peasants in the countryside and weaken the ability of the capitalists
to expropriate the product of their labor by exploiting control of lending
and of the production of modern fertilizers.

Fred Feldman
ffeldman@bellatlantic.net
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Miami conspiracy to attack Venezuela
Granma International
I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Havana. January 30, 2003

WASHINGTON (PL).- The White House might have announced that it was initiating a war on terrorism, but in its own backyard extremist groups Cubans and Venezuelans are plotting and receiving military training to attack their own countries of origin.

In their determination to bring down Presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, the capos of the F-4 organization, who have admitted their involvement in acts of terrorism against Cuba, plus the so-called Venezuelan Patriotic Front led by a coup officer from the Venezuelan army have signed a "civil-military alliance", according to The Wall Street Journal.

The F-4 Commandos are led by 56-year-old Rodolfo Frómeta and the Patriotic Front by coup member Captain Luis Eduardo García, (aged 37). During last April s failed coup d état, he was one of the first military dissidents to attack the Caracas Presidential Palace in order to topple the South American country s democratically elected president.

According to the daily, the two groups are committed to uniting their "combined military experience and exchanging espionage information" in their attempts to attack the legitimate authorities in Havana and Caracas.

García himself revealed that he is offering military training to 50 F-4 Commando members at a firing range located in the Everglades swamps; 30 of the recruits are Cuban-American and the rest are Miami-based radical dissidents.

Miami has become the refuge for a growing number of anti-Chávez extremists, in the midst of an exodus in which some 10,000 Venezuelans have gravitated to the city in the last three years.

"New arrivals" discover a well-established Cuban-American community whose most radical sectors are particularly enthusiastic allies in the fight against Chávez, notes the publication.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Rebel Venezuelan officer discovered training US-Cuban mercenaries in Florida's Everglades
V Headline
Posted: Friday, January 31, 2003 - 5:01:34 AM
By: Robert Rudnicki

Reports published in the Wall Street Journal and on Cuba's Granma news service claim that rebel Venezuelan military officer Captain Luis Eduardo Garcia is training groups of Cuban-Americans in the art of military war fare at a firing range in the Everglades swamps.

According to the news reports, currently 50 men are receiving training, of which 30 are Cuban Americans and the rest Miami-based dissidents and radicals.
The move comes following the signing of a pact between Garcia's Venezuelan Patriotic Front and and the anti-Castro F-4 organization and the formation of a civil-military alliance.

Garcia was heavily involved in the April 11 coup d'etat against the government of President Hugo Chavez Frias.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say that the two groups are committed to uniting their "combined military experience and exchanging espionage information."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Rebelion (Madrid)-Culture and the challenges of the contemporary world

01/21/03-James Petras

"We will never build a communist conscience with a
dollar sign in the minds and hearts of men."
Fidel Castro

Introduction

To write of culture is to write of art, ideology, education, sport and many
other things. Culture can be discussed from numerous perspectives including
personality, aesthetics, politics and history. I will focus specifically on
culture as a terrain for political struggle, and leave for another time and
place a discussion of culture as an aesthetic medium, as source of
reflection and human fulfillment. In particular I will focus on culture as
ideology and how it influences class and national consciousness and
political action. Culture as ideology involves the creation and expression
of human "subjectivity" ,or specifically, national and class consciousness:
how people ( classes, gender, ethnic and racial groups ) perceive and act to
influence their objective circumstances. Subjectivity is basic to
understanding conflicts, structures of power and movements for
transformation in the contemporary world. "Subjectivity" as political
consciousness can be understood in its dynamic dialectical relation to
objective reality. How people and classes react to their objective
conditions shapes their material reality, which, in turn, impacts on their
subjectivity.

Ideological beliefs and political action are a result of multiple
determinations, including socio-economic conditions ( crises, position in
the class structure, upward or downward social mobility, the nature of the
state ) and by political organizations, leadership, the mass media,
religious institutions and by social organizations embedded in traditions,
family and community practices. Class behavior can be influenced as much by
current economic conditions as by future aspirations and hopes.

Ideology and the Big Issues

In order to understand class and national consciousness in relation to the
Big Issues in the contemporary world it is important to identify their
nature.

There are five major challenges facing the great majority of humanity. These
include:

1- U.S. imperialist drive for world domination through the Bush doctrine of
"permanent wars". This is exemplified by the wars of conquest in the
Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; the preparations for war against North Korea,
Iran and the Arab East; and the military intervention in Colombia via Plan
Colombia, the belligerent attitude toward Cuba and the support for a
military coup in Venezuela.

2- The recolonization of Latin America via the imposition of ALCA and the
transfer of sovereignty to a U.S. controlled ALCA commission. Washington's
application of the doctrine of "extra-territoriality", which asserts the
right of the U.S. to override international and national laws. The rejection
by the U.S. of the International Criminal Court in order to allow its
military forces to commit crimes with impunity. The U.S. has assumed the
"right" for its military and intelligence agents to commit homicide - to
assassinate - political adversaries within the frontiers of any country.

3- The pillage of the Third World - particularly Latin America- leading to
the reversion to earlier more retrograde forms of exploitation including
white slavery ( involving the trade of millions of women and children into
coerced sex, especially from the ex-USSR and Latin America ), economic
pillage ( the theft and transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars of
private savings and public revenues from Latin America through the
international banking system to the U.S. and Europe ), the appropriation of
all the major sectors of the economy ( industry, finance, commerce ) and the
de- industrialization of Latin American economies via free trade while
retaining protective barriers and export subsidies. The result is the
reversion in many parts of Latin America to pre-capitalist economic
relations. For example, in Argentina the barter economy now involves over 4
million people. In Latin America over 60% of the labor force is in the
informal or subsistence economy, involved in simple commodity exchanges.

4- U.S. hegemony over the political class, from the electoral parties of the
center-left to the far right, leading to acomodation to the imperialist
project and perpetuation of the system of pillage and re-colonization. For
example, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the self-appointed
"Friends of Venezuela" have intervened to promote the political agenda of
U.S. client 'golpistas' against President Chavez of Venezuela.

5- The uneven growth of powerful socio-political movements throughout the
world, but most directly in Latin America in response to the empire building
project of U.S. imperialism.

The problems of imperialist wars, re-colonization and pillage - raise a
fundamental challenge to the popular class forces and states organized
against the empire. The major hypothesis of this paper is that the objective
realities created by empire-building have created the necessary but not
sufficient conditions for mass anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist movements
on a world scale. The worldwide regression of socio-economic conditions can
only become the bases for a fundamental transformation in the presence of
subjective factors. To illustrate the importance of the subjective or '
cultural factor' in meeting the challenge of empire, it is useful to compare
the experiences of different countries.

Comparative Subjectivities: Argentina and the U.S.

In the United States and in Argentina large scale fraud and swindles were
committed in 2001-2002 resulting in the loss of tens of billions of dollars
in savings and pension funds. In the case of the U.S. the swindles were
perpetrated by multi- national corporations, private investment banks,
corporate auditors with the complicity of government regulatory agencies. In
Argentina, the perpetrators were the private, mostly foreign-owned, banks,
with the direct complicity of the government.

In Argentina there were mass protests, leading to a popular uprising that
forced the resignation of the government. Subsequently thousands formed
neighborhood assemblies and joined in alliances with the unemployed workers
movements to pressure the government.

In the United States, there were no mass movements - only individual
complaints, private malaise, and localized hostility to the corporations.
Alienation from the political system increased. A few groups hired lawyers
to bring legal suites against the corporations in hopes of recovering their
funds. Most of the impoverished middle class resigned themselves to a longer
working career, delayed retirement and lower living standards. Many small
investors withdrew their investments from pension funds. Inconsequential
congressional hearings, and the appointment of new state regulators changed
nothing. The system was not questioned, the corporations continued
functioning in the same manner and the President and his party secured a
'majority' in Congress - while two-thirds of the electorate were too
disgusted to vote.

These two cases raise the question of why similar massive frauds and
significant loss of savings had such divergent subjective responses? The
answer is found in the different political-cultural-ideological context in
each country.

In Argentina there are large scale political and social movements: the
unemployed "piqueteros" demonstrate and block highways; active left-wing
parties intervene in political life; a dissident public employees' trade
union confederation is in active opposition; there is widespread rejection
of the "free market" ideology among the general populace. The subjective
conditions propelling mass protests in Argentina are caused by a political
culture that encourages collective action, an ideology which identifies the
political-economic responsibility of the banks and the regime for the loss
of income and a model of successful political action based on the
piqueteros. The ' political culture' of opposition spread despite the mass
media's support for the government. The assembly movement created its own
communication networks and utilized the existing alternative media. The
assembly movement and mass action took place despite the absence of any
support from the official trade union bureaucracy closely tied to the regime
in power.

In the United States, the millions affected by the swindle were not part of
the political culture of protest and mobilization. At most they were
supporters of one of the two capitalist parties who were financed by the
major corporate swindlers. The rest of the "civic associations" to which
they belong are conservative or apolitical and provide no framework for
understanding the nature and responsibility of the government for the
swindle. None of the civic associations to which they belong provide a
vehicle for political action. The mind set of the millions of victims
revolved around loyalty to the state, the corporation and the family. Once
the state and corporation defrauded them, they fell back on the family,
which offered mostly personal solace and no basis for collective action.
Lacking any reference or organizations for collective action, without
examples of successful popular mobilizations the victims largely turned
inward toward personal solutions, swallowing their losses in silent and
impotent isolation. The major swindlers went about their business with
impunity.

The contrasting "subjectivities" -level of social action and social
organization between the U.S. and Argentina under similar conditions of
socio-economic adversity points to the decisive importance of political
culture, ideology and political intervention. In the United States the
unstated slogan was "Whoever can, saves himself". In Argentina the popular
slogan was " You pick on one, you pick on all of us". The fundamental
difference is the emergence of a culture of solidarity in Argentina, in
contrast to the vertical dependence characteristic of the U.S. corporate
world.

Comparison: Brazil and Venezuela

During the 1990's Brazil and Venezuela went through a decade of economic
stagnation with widening social inequalities and regressive income patterns.
In both countries objective conditions were favorable for consequential
political changes. In both countries a large majority of voters elected a
populist or center-left president, Hugo Chavez in the case of Venezuela and
in 2002, Lula da Silva in Brazil. Subsequently however, Chavez faced a
prolonged employers' lockout and strike. A substantial minority of the
electorate ( the figures are in dispute ) called for his resignation and
supported right wing leaders. While Chavez's support declined, Lula's
support increased in the run-up to his election. In other words, there was a
shift to the right under an incumbent president and a shift to the left
toward a newly elected candidate, under generally similar economic
conditions.

The change in subjectivity and the differences require a discussion of the
political, social and cultural context. In the first instance the Chavez
regime presided over continued economic stagnation, while Lula was still in
opposition and the blame for the socio-economic problems clearly rested with
the preceding Cardoso regime. Secondly the Chavez regime concentrated his
public investment on improving services ( health, education and housing )
for the poorest sectors, while the middle classes resented the relative loss
of economic status. In Brazil the newly elected Lula regime increased its
support by promising to abolish hunger without affecting the power and
privileges of the ruling or upper- middle classes. Thirdly the
pro-imperialist mass media in Venezuela engaged in a permanent vitriolic
propaganda war against Chavez once he declared his independence of U.S.
foreign policy, particularly on Plan Colombia, ALCA and the wars of conquest
in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. In contrast Lula, once elected, has
referred to Bush as an "ally", promised to "negotiate" over ALCA and offered
to "mediate" between the coup-makers and the Chavez government (rather than
affirm his support for the constitutional government ). By adopting a
centrist agenda, Lula has secured the support of financial powers and the
"neutrality" of the mass media.

The Venezuelan mass media's constant reiteration of deceptive and slanderous
propaganda was blatantly directed at abetting military rebellion and the
overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The media blitz was a major
factor in influencing the middle class to turn against Chavez and take to
the streets. The Venezuelan media have successfully propagated an image of
an authoritarian president presiding over a dictatorial state, informed and
allied with Castro-communism and destroying the economy. The effectiveness
of the media in perpetrating this totally false image is measured by the
substantial sector of the middle class which believes it, even as their
direct experience belies it.

The vast majority of the Venezuelans, especially those trying to overthrow
the regime, freely participated and voted in seven free elections in which
Chavez or Chavez's constitutional proposals were approved. The regime has
respected the division between the three powers of government, and tolerated
the vast excesses of a press and electronic media beyond what any other
Western electoral system would have put up with. The government has
tolerated and protected mass assemblies and marches even those which have
incited military rebellion and the violent overthrow of the elected
government. While the government has not made major improvements in living
standards, especially for the middle class, the economic performance of the
government was a relative improvement over the previous regime, until the
state oil bosses sabotaged petroleum production. The principle cause of the
precipitous decline of living standards was the lockout and the paralysis of
the oil industry organized by the bosses and director of the state-owned oil
companies, they engaged in a self-fulfilling prophecy - they "predicted"
collapse and then did everything possible to make it happen. In contrast the
government has been struggling to restart production and prevent a further
decline in income.

It is clear that on the ideological and political terrain the pro-U.S.
opposition has been winning the cultural war. There is little doubt and many
historical precedents to substantiate that the extremely costly mass media
propaganda effort is probably financed in part by covert funds from U.S.
intelligence agencies. Otherwise it is not possible to understand how the
lockout can continue for so long. Without advertising revenues and with
continuing high overhead costs, the private media could not sustain full
staffing and around the clock, seven days a week, for nearly 2 months,
unless it received large scale transfers from the CIA. Similar CIA covert
subsidies were used to finance El Mercurio in Chile, La Prensa in Nicaragua
and many media outlets allied to the U.S. in countries where Washington
sought to overthrow independent regimes.

This raises the question of why the pro-coup, anti-Chavez and pro-U.S.
propaganda has been successful in polarizing the country, and in particular
of "winning over" the middle classes, in a way that is not imaginable in
Brazil?

The key is the "political culture" of the Caracas middle class more attuned
to Miami than to the interior of the country and urban poor. The "Miami
complex" is based on frequent visits, vacations and consumption excursions
to Florida in particular and the U.S. in general. This complex contributed
to the reproduction of the U.S. high consumption pattern and a "mall
culture" which is at the center of existence of the Caracas middle class.
The "class reference" of the Venezuelan middle class is the upper-middle
class living in Miami. They aspire to mimic their life style: a condo,
unlimited credit card spending and poorly paid Haitian maids.

The decline in living standards over the past two decades and the malaise of
the middle class led some to vote for Chavez. Their hope was based on the
notion that he would end corruption and raise incomes to sustain their Miami
vision. The problem emerged when Chavez came into conflict with the U.S.
This conflict had two effects in Venezuela: Washington's political clients
in the business and trade union elite were "activated". They in turn
appealed to the middle class to turn out Chavez. The largely white middle
class was forced to choose between a black president appealing to the poor
and their identification with the Miami complex. Latent racism among the
middle class (latent while the white middle class was dominant) was
activated by the elites and counterposed to their "model" - the life style
of the prosperous white Miami elites.

Culture and Politics

These comparative experiences highlight the importance of culture, ideology
and the mass media in shaping divergent political responses to similar
economic circumstances. Pro-imperialist media propaganda is particularly
effective in the context where the electorate has not been organized by the
left and where a culture of solidarity is absent. The prevalence of
"mimetic-consumerist" culture facilitates the penetration of authoritarian
ideology and alignment with pro-U.S. political leaders.

The impact of right wing mass media is limited when there are mass popular
organizations ( particular those which are 'horizontal' in structure ) based
on common struggles and experiences, influenced by egalitarian ideology. In
both Argentina and Brazil, the mass media are uniformly in favor of the
right wing elites in power, yet in both cases the propaganda message was
rejected by the masses. In Argentina, the mass movement overthrew the
incumbent De La Rua regime; in Brazil over 60% of the populace voted for
what they believed to be a candidate of the center-left.

Culture and War

Today the big issue is imperialist war - specifically Washington's military
attack and invasion of Iraq and nuclear threats against North Korea.
Washington's propaganda machine as well as that of its client regimes and
European 'allies' is engaged in a global effort to justify the war, to
neutralize opponents and to win adherents, particularly among the political
class. Even among the most bellicose, militarist sectors of the Bush
regime - those most prone to ignore world public opinion - there is a need
to provide a 'rationale', to secure the support of clients.

The mass media - particularly the U.S. owned media - have saturated the
world with pro-war propaganda, presenting and justifying the official line
and excluding alternative critical voices or any reports of major protests.
Nonetheless public opinion polls demonstrate that the overwhelming majority
of the people in Europe and Latin America do not believe the U.S. has made a
convincing case for war and in some countries like France over 75% oppose
the imperialist war. Even in the U.S., polls indicate a divided public.
While many support a war, the opposition is growing as witness by the mass
demonstrations of over 700,000 on January 18 this year. Moreover even among
those who support the war, a majority do so conditionally - only if the
United Nations votes in favor of a war resolution.

Mass media propaganda is less credible and serves mainly to reinforce
pro-war sentiment among the political elite and to immobilize those who
verbally oppose the war.

In the battle for popular consciousness the political opposition to the war
has been able to gain support through alternative media (electronic media)
and by public demonstrations. The voices of critical cultural figures,
intellectuals and religious leaders - particularly Christian and Muslim has
also contributed to mobilizing public opinion. Despite the great disparity
in institutional power, despite close ties between the mass media and the
U.S. imperial state, the majority of world public opinion has not been
convinced. The worldwide demonstrations against the war are growing in size
and militancy and have begun to influence sectors of the political class in
Europe.

The 'culture' of imperial militarism based on violent domination has however
been embraced by certain U.S. intellectuals and Christian fundamentalists -
particularly those aligned with Israeli state. The vision of "permanent war"
abroad and domestic repression evokes images of the Third Reich. Their
support of offensive wars ("preventive wars") and their embrace of political
assassinations, indiscriminant intervention and economic blackmail are meant
to intimidate any and all regimes which might question Washington's will to
Global Empire. The emergence of totalitarian intellectuals linked to
unending imperialist wars of conquest is exemplified by their support of
massive violence against Iraq.

The United Nations estimated that 10 million deaths and injuries will result
from the U.S. invasion. In attacking a virtually defenseless population with
a foreknowledge of 10 million deaths and injuries is an act of premeditated
genocide-which is comparable or exceeding the Nazi Holocaust against the
Jews, Gypsies and Serbs. The totalitarian intellectuals who enthusiastically
embrace these genocidal policies are ardent advocates of terror bombing of
civilians in pursuit of U.S. world power.

The mass media either ignored the U.N. report on the likely millions of
victims or trivialized it as simply another news item to be buried on the
inner pages.

Premeditated genocide, the scientifically planned crime against humanity is
justified by prominent Christian fundamentalist leaders in print and
broadcast media and by right wing Jewish intellectuals in the U.S. Overseas
it is backed by major Western governments ( particularly the British,
Italian and Spainish regimes). The U.S. president with the support of the
three branches of government and the mass media feels free to execute
genocide with impunity.

What interests us, paraphrasing Eduardo Pavlovshy is the
institutionalization of genocide, much more than the individual pathologies
of Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and other genocide practitioners. If we
insist on the individual attributes of the executioners of genocidal
policies we lose sight of the key to the problem: genocide as an
institution.

Within the institutional context it is logical that the Bush administration
rejected the International Criminal Court. International impunity is a
necessary accompaniment of institutional genocide. Today the cultural wars
between totalitarian and anti-war intellectuals raise fundamental issues but
none more important than the struggle against premeditated genocide.

ALCA, Resistance and Cultural Wars

ALCA is fundamentally the re-colonization of Latin America. It means the
total loss of national and popular sovereignty as well as the conquest of
Latin America's economy. But in order to realize the colonial conquest, the
imperial power requires cultural-ideological hegemony. The previous
neo-liberal policies have created the core group of pro-empire politicians,
intellectuals and economists who are promoting ALCA. They are found not only
on the right - those who openly embrace ALCA - but among the so-called
"Center-Left", those who agree to negotiate to "reform" ALCA, hoping to
secure some written concessions for sectors of their domestic ruling class.

With the failures of neo-liberalism and the rise of anti-imperialist mass
movements, the right-wing intellectuals and politicians supporting ALCA have
been largely discredited. In their place there has appeared a new type of
colonialist intellectual - the anti-colonialist, ALCA critic who, however at
the same time accepts the larger imperial framework as "realism" or
"pragmatism". They cite the "unfavorable international framework", the
"severity of the domestic crises", the "need to avoid international
confrontations" for their acceptance of ALCA negotiations. The danger of
these ex-leftist, recent intellectual converts to ALCA is that they still
carry leftist credentials and have a credible history. Their principle
ideological affirmation is to argue that newly elected center-left
politicians represent a "new era" for Latin America and cite their mass
base, their past history, their "popular origins". When leftist critics
point out the appointment of neo-liberal economic ministers and central
bankers, their regressive agreements with the IMF and World Bank the
ideologues argue for "pragmatism", "realism" and the need to make
"alliances". The ex-leftist ideologues of the "center-left" are clearly
uncomfortable with defending regimes entering into negotiations over ALCA
(particularly so soon after they had been among its staunchest critics).
They resort to irrational diatribes against "scholastic Marxists" who
articulate "outmoded and failed theories", "café leftists" who are "out of
touch with national reality". Anti-intellectual demagogy becomes the last
resort of apologists for the center-left regime's transition toward ALCA.
Their "realism" is in fact accommodation to the existing national and
international power structure. Their caricature of Marxism is an evasion of
the anti-imperialist intellectuals who criticize the center-left's insertion
into the imperial order. The attack on "café Marxists" is based on their own
growing distance from the praxis of left intellectuals engaged in the
anti-ALCA protests.

The incorporation of many former "leftist" politicians and intellectuals
into the apparatuses of the new center-left regimes is a major challenge for
consequential leftists. The main task of the leftist intellectual is not to
join and fight within the state apparatus - a hopeless terrain in which the
strategic economic and repressive positions are controlled by pro-ALCA
ministers and functionaries. The real challenge is to look outside the state
apparatus to the growing mass agrarian and urban mass movements. Inside
these mass movements involving millions of the victims of imperialist
exploitation there is a growing debate over the role of electoral politics,
the relation to newly elected center-left regimes and the relationship to
ALCA. The resolution of these debates will have a profound impact on Latin
America for the next decade.

Electoral and Movement Politics

The revolutionary movement position views electoral politics as a
subordinate element to the mass struggle, the electoral party as an
"instrument" to further mass demands and to support extra-parliamentary
action. This relationship between mass movement and electoral politics is
illustrated in Bolivia during the popular mobilizations convoked by the
cocaleros and supported generally throughout the country. The MAS, the
electoral "instrument" of the mass movements, was in the street, deputies
were assaulted and injured along with picketers at the road blockages.

Class struggle occurs within the larger and more established mass popular
movements. In Ecuador, for instance, many of the Indians who are leaders
integrated into electoral politics and part of the center-left regimes are
local traders, transport owners and recipients of funds from overseas NGO's.
They profit as intermediaries and see themselves as part of the upwardly
mobile middle class. When I asked one such indigenous leader about
bi-lingual education, he told me that it was for "poor people", he sent his
children to Spanish language schools, because "that is the way to achieve
success in life". The growing class differentiation within "Indian
communities" shatters the image of identity ideologues who reject class
analysis in favor of imputing cultural attributes to entire ethnic groups.
The centrality of socio-economic divisions within ethnic groups have
pronounced political consequences - the transformation of movements into
reformist electoralist parties.

The reformist electoralist approach is illustrated by the Workers Party in
Brazil, which refused to support the anti-ALCA referendum, to secure
electoral alliances with right-wing neo-liberal parties. During the World
Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Lula chose to participate in the WSF and the
Davos Meeting organized by the world's financial and business oligarchies.
While over 52 million Brazilians voted for Lula with the expectations of
social changes, Lula selected his strategic economic team from neo-liberal
notables without consulting the mass movements or even the Workers Party. In
Brazil electoral politics dominated the mass movements ( as was evident
during the electoral campaign when the Workers Party demanded the movements
suspend all struggles that might "alienate" rightwing oligarchs ).

The tension between electoral parties and mass movements is reflected in the
polarization of the intellectuals. For those intellectuals who are
organically linked to the electoral parties, their ideological views and
values embrace the politics of short- term accommodation to power and the
perquisites of public office. Those intellectuals who are linked to the
movements retain a realistic and autonomous position in relation to the
rightward moving center-left regimes and affirm the perspective of building
an alternative anti-imperialist and transformative project.

While the center-left intellectuals value power, prestige and media
approval, the movement intellectuals value organizing the exploited,
critical thinking and political independence.

Today throughout Latin and North American and the rest of the world, these
debates and choices confront the left intellectuals: to be part of the
imperial system and its regional blocs, or to be part of the global and
local class-based mass movements seeking to overthrow the system. It is the
choice between those who support negotiating with ALCA and those who reject
ALCA, between those who support the existing power structure (in the name of
governing for "all" the people) and those who act for the exploited people.
In the anti-war movement there are those who oppose the U.S. imperialist war
and those who oppose it only because the UN Security Council does not
approve it.

These cultural wars - the ideological debates - are not merely the
reflection of economic interests, they also produce the power blocs -
parties and movements which will decide the questions of imperialist wars or
peace, re-colonization or vibrant independent states responsive to the
impoverished classes.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Left Turns in South America: United Opposition to Neoliberalism in Bolivia?
Tricenter.com-Latin America: Posted on Tuesday, January 28 @ 11:59:54 AST
01/28/03-Topic: Sociology
by FORREST HYLTON

"Instead of imitating Álvaro Uribe, Sánchez de Lozada should learn from
Lula."
Evo Morales

Excepting Colombia, as "traditional" political parties and national
economies disintegrate, South America has moved swiftly left in the new
millennium: just over a year ago, Argentina witnessed a mass uprising of
unprecedented proportions, while neo-populist regimes are now in power in
Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador. In Bolivia, a country in which Left parties
have never obtained more than 3.5% of the vote, Evo Morales, leader of the
coca growers' trade union federation and the country's chief opposition
party, MAS (Movement Toward Socialism), won 20% of the vote. He lost the
presidential elections in June 2002 by a narrow margin, and only because he
refused to enter into alliances with any of the neoliberal parties. When
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who ruled Bolivia from 1993-97, was sworn in as
president for a second time this past August, it was clear that
neoliberalism was hobbling on its last legs.

Sánchez de Lozada faced a different political scenario than the one he
helped create as Senator in 1985 with Decree 21060 and the New Economic
Policy, which brought full-blown neoliberalism to Bolivia. The communist tin
miners' movement-the core of Latin America's most combative proletariat in
the second half of the twentieth century-was broken by President Victor Paz
Estenssoro, the very man who had risen to power on the strength of the
miner-led national revolution in 1952. The highland Aymara movement, which
had resurfaced with force in La Paz and the surrounding countryside during
and after the dictatorship of General Hugo Bánzer Suárez (1971-78),
degenerated into traditional clientelism and factionalism under the
center-left UDP coalition (1982-85). And the coca growers' movement of the
eastern lowlands had barely begun to form. The Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army
(EGTK), made up almost exclusively of highland Aymara, made its appearance
after 1986, but posed no threat to the neoliberal onslaught, and was
destroyed by the first Sánchez de Lozada regime in 1993.

Under the advice of Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose "shock
treatments" would soon be applied to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, after 1985 the nationalized tin mines-the basis of the Bolivian
economy after 1952-were privatized. In conjunction with his British and
American business associates Sánchez de Lozada became Bolivia's leading
mining entrepreneur, with an estimated personal fortune of $200 million.
20,000 miners were "relocated" from the highlands, many of them to the
Chapare, and as they descended into the eastern lowlands to grow coca, they
took with them the traditions of radical trade unionism they had forged in
the mines and in mining communities in the previous half century.

In 1988-90, the coca growers' movement, 200,000-strong, established itself
as the vanguard of resistance to imperialism in Bolivia, as the U.S.
ratcheted up the intensity of the drug war in Andes. In 1989, Bolivia
produced enough coca paste to make 286 tons of cocaine, and in 1988, law
1008 made traffickers guilty until proven innocent. Current U.S. ambassador
to Bolivia David Greenlee, then an employee of the CIA, overhauled the
strategy of coca eradication by integrating military and police efforts. The
coca growers, organized in trade union federations, staged massive marches
"for life and dignity," in which they exalted the coca leaf, as distinct
from cocaine, as part of their millennial cultural tradition. They refused
any connection with drug trafficking and with rudimentary self-defense
militias, they fought the growing militarization of their region under U.S.
auspices. Their collective political strength grew in the early 1990s, and
when Sánchez de Lozada took over in 1993, they had become a movement to
reckon with. Hence their militants were subject to more frequent torture,
detention, and murder than those of any other social movement in recent
Bolivian history.

Yet Sánchez de Lozada issued a series of reforms-privatization of pensions,
the airline, the telephone company and the oil company; flexibilization of
labor; municipal and land reform-that devastated that devastated rural
cultivators and urban workers alike. The coca growers, in the absence of
organized opposition in the valleys and highlands, remained isolated in the
eastern lowlands. Bolivia became a neoliberal model, a laboratory-an IMF
"success story." But like those of that other model country, Argentina,
Bolivia's triumphs turned out to be costly mirages, and social conflict
exploded under former dictator Hugo Bánzer (1998-2001), whose ties to the
drug trade were extensive and whose governing program consisted almost
exclusively of "zero coca." Bánzer's successor, Manuel "Tuto" Quiroga
(2001-2), claimed to have reduced potential cocaine production to 13 tons
annually. Both Bánzer and Quiroga killed more people as democratically
elected presidents than Bánzer had as dictator.

In April 2000 in the city of Cochabamba (pop. 500,000), a coalition of
factory workers, high school and university students, professionals,
salaried employees, peasants from the surrounding valley, peasant
"irrigators" from the highlands, schoolteachers, neighborhood committees,
university professors, non-salaried workers, the unemployed, and street kids
blocked the privatization of water through massive civil disobedience. For
the first time since the early 1980s, a popular movement from below had
scored a substantive victory in Bolivia, defeating a North American
multinational and its Bolivian servants in government.

Protest spread in April and May 2000 to the highland Aymara, who shut down
the region around La Paz through road blockades, as Felipe Quispe, a former
guerrilla leader of the EGTK, breathed new life into the Aymara peasant
trade union federation. Though the coca growers-who know the value of
solidarity-supported the insurrection in Cochabamba and the blockades around
La Paz, they suffered serious setbacks under Bánzer's forced eradication,
and were rapidly losing ground to empire. Coca cultivation in Colombia,
meanwhile, tripled to 162,000 hectares in 2000, whereas it had never covered
more than 46,000 hectares in Bolivia. (We should regard these statistics
with caution.) And an estimated $500 million dollars were lost annually
because of forced eradication.

The cycle initiated in April 2000 intensified over the next two years and
culminated with the resurgence of the coca growers and the near-victory of
Evo Morales in June 2002; this after former U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha
warned Bolivians not to vote for Morales. Though the material basis of the
coca growers' movement (coca) has been eliminated to a remarkable extent,
MAS-which managed, in its discourse of radical nationalism, to capture the
disaffected urban middle class and proletarian vote-regained lost territory.
So did Felipe Quispe and the highland Aymara, as the Indian Revolution*
Party (MIP) obtained five seats in Congress following a year of government
incompliance with the Island of the Sun Accords.

Despite the superior quality of its leadership and the radically democratic
nature of its organizational structure, however, the Coordination for Life
and Water in Cochabamba had all but disintegrated. And while many of Felipe
Quispe's supporters voted for Evo Morales, in practical terms the lowland
coca growers and the highland Aymara were separated by an abyss that was
widened by constant caudillo feuding between Quispe and Morales. No unity
appeared on the horizon.

As one might have expected, given the neo-colonial arrangements that have
governed Bolivia since it separated from Spain, MAS and MIP have achieved
nothing in parliament, other than the diversion of scarce resources away
from the organization of the movements. Six months after the beginning of
the Sánchez de Lozada regime, the balance is disastrous: several coca
growers killed in confrontations with the army; four landless peasants
killed by landlord militias; six more killed in the Chaco; five
conversations about forced eradication of coca with no results; ongoing
incompliance with the Island of the Sun Accords.

Exclusive blame for this depressing panorama cannot be laid at the feet of
Sánchez de Lozada, however, since he had been willing to discuss the
possibility of a temporary halt to forced eradication and commit to a study
of the market for legal consumption of the coca leaf-until Bush's man for
Latin America, Cuban-American Otto Reich, arrived in early October.

Ever since, the dialogues between Evo Morales and Sánchez de Lozada have
been farcical, as there is nothing left for them to talk about. Under great
pressure from the coca growers' assemblies, in late December Morales
announced road blockades for January-unless the government was willing to
reverse its policies on eradication and include the coca growers' unions in
the planning and execution of the study of the market for coca leaf
consumption. Morales had not consulted Felipe Quispe, however, and broke a
verbal agreement the two had made to blockade in April, after the harvest
season had passed in the highlands. Oscar Oliveira, leader of the
Coordination for Life and Water, was not consulted either, even though
Cochabamba is the gateway to the Chapare.

Undaunted, Morales wasted no time in assembling a list of organizations that
would join the January mobilization: debtors, domestics and household
servants, teachers, workers without retirement funds, peasant colonizers
from the Yungas, mining cooperatives, departmental workers' federations; a
range of groups whose demands were being ignored by the Sánchez de Lozada
administration. Morales began to focus his discourse on issues that
transcended sectoral concerns, such as privatization, the export of Bolivian
natural gas to the U.S. via Chile and the FTAA, and he claimed to speak,
with more credibility than usual, in the national interest. It seemed as if
Morales and MAS would, first, fulfill their promise of consolidating a
broad-based Left opposition that brought the spatially and sectorally
separate social movements together and, second, get back to
extra-parliamentary roots.

Morales and the opposition sent Sánchez de Lozada a letter on Christmas Eve
outlining fifteen demands for discussion and announcing a blockade for
January 6, 2003. They did not receive a reply. Instead, the government and
media invested their resources in producing and circulating anti-blockade
propaganda throughout the New Year season, proclaiming that the blockades
were anti-patriotic, punished the poorest, and threatened "democracy."

Once the blockades began on Monday, January 13, it quickly became evident
that of all the groups assembled on Morales' list, only the coca growers had
the collective power to blockade; and that the government, backed by the
nation's principal newspapers and television stations as well as the U.S.
Embassy, would use excessive force to stop them. By Monday morning, with the
road from Sacaba (Cochabamba) to Yapacaní (Santa Cruz) shut down, 7,000
troops had descended on the Chapare lowlands, while in the highlands, 3,000
were dispatched to Oruro and La Paz, 1,000 to Sucre and Potosí. 22,000
police were mobilized nationwide and "dalmation" riot police from La Paz
were sent to Cochabamba, where they did battle with university students in
solidarity with the coca growers. By the end of the day, 160 people, some of
them parents registering their children for school, had been detained and
sent to air force bases, and a young coca grower received a bullet to the
jaw that, miraculously, did not kill him.

Rómulo Gonzales, a 22 year-old coca grower from the Chapare, was not so
lucky: on the second day of the blockade he was shot to death from a
distance of 500m near Colomi, one of the last towns before the road to Santa
Cruz drops thousands of meters into the Chapare. Sánchez de Lozada,
pretending that everything was under control, left for the swearing-in cerem
ony of Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador, as the media broadcast misleading images
of cleared roads that prompted people to travel where they had no business
doing so. Felipe Quispe and the highland Aymara peasantry negotiated the
provision of 500 tractors stipulated in the Island of the Sun Accords, while
senior citizens broke off conversations with the government over law 2434
and the indexation of their retirement benefits to the dollar, declaring
that they would march on La Paz in protest.

Under control of media mogul and Vice-President Carlos Mesa, on Wednesday,
January 15, Bolivia lived through one of its darkest days in recent memory:
40 km from Cochabamba, Felix Ibarra was murdered by government snipers;
Willy Hinojosa, 23, died from bullet wounds in the Villa Tunari hospital in
the Chapare; Victor Hinojosa died from bullet wounds in Llavín; and coca
growers militias' ambushed and injured eight soldiers in Cristal Mayu. Most
tragically, six senior citizens, forced by the "dalmation" police to get on
buses the government had rented in order to disperse the march on La Paz in
the wee hours of the morning, died in an accident on the road to Oruro,
along with seven other passengers. The bus the government rented did not
have mandatory insurance and it is not clear who will pay the survivors.
Blockades extended partially from the Chapare to Santa Cruz, Potosí and
Oruro, while in El Alto, an Aymara city of 500,000 on the upper rim of La
Paz, students, market vendors, and parents of conscripted soldiers marched
with local senior citizens. U.S. Ambassador David Greenlee arrived in La Paz
just as the situation appeared to have slipped out of government control,
but he declined to comment until Sánchez de Lozada returned for the ceremony
of protocol.

On Thursay and Friday, President Sánchez de Lozada regained the initiative,
inviting Evo Morales to dialogue in Cochabamaba, and the senior citizens'
leader met with the vice president in La Paz. However, when Morales arrived
in Cochabamba, he was told that the president would not meet with him until
the blockade was lifted and was given three hours to take action. In return,
the government promised to lift what it called "control measures", i.e.
repression. The Defender of the People, Ana María Romero, a government
official, noted that such short-term time limits could frustrate the chances
for dialogue, since it takes the popular movements much longer to arrive at
decisions through assembly and consensus.

The government betrayed its utter ignorance of the participatory mechanisms
through which popular democracy works in Bolivia. Or perhaps the 3-hour time
limit was designed to make dialogue impossible. In any event, through the
magic of the media, Morales came off as intransigent and the government as
reasonable. Shrewdly, the government and media played the senior citizens
off against the coca-growers. Whereas the former operated exclusively within
the parameters of the constitution, we were told, the latter were violent,
human rights violators seeking to destabilize the country at the expense of
the impoverished peasantry and urban proletariat.

On Friday, the senior citizens' march arrived in La Paz with great media
fanfare and received an astonishing display of material solidarity and moral
support from all sectors of the urban population. Vice President Carlos Mesa
sought to redeem himself with the help of the cameras and the music. By
Friday's end, though, there were 700 people detained on various air force
bases throughout the country, government forces had killed five people and
were responsible for the deaths of six more. Ana María Romero, Defender of
the People, reported that the prisoners were abused with racial epithets,
and that detained women were being raped and threatened with rape. Blockades
continued in the Chapare, Santa Cruz, and the semi-tropical Yungas north of
La Paz, but the highlands were firmly under government control. Even though
pressure from within the Aymara trade union federation was mounting to join
the mobilization, Felipe Quispe announced blockades for February. On
Saturday, 1500 miners marched from Huanuni, surrounded by tanks and under
surveillance from the air, toward Oruro, but in Machamarquita 500 of them
clashed with government forces, and miner Adrían Martínez was shot and
killed.

In what looks to be the most significant development since the rise of MAS,
Evo Morales convened the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the People in Cochabamba
on Sunday, January 19. Only Felipe Quispe and Saturnino Mallku, the bankrupt
leader of the moribund Bolivian Workers' Central (COB), were left out. What
makes the group so important is that it could succeed in cementing the unity
that the miners lent to the COB in the golden years of struggle before the
1980s. In those days, the COB formed a solid wall of opposition to
dictatorial military governments and occasionally exercised dual power.

If the new COB that Morales is calling for comes together, the popular
movements might be exercising dual power again in the not-too-distant
future. The government will almost surely declare a State of Siege, which
makes opposition politics illegal, the moment signs of such a development
appear. Cochabamba is already under a de facto state of siege, and the
industrialists and agro-exporters have called for the government to
implement one nationwide. Foreign NGOS have come in for criticism for their
alleged support for the mobilization, and their members could be detained
and/or deported as things go from bad to worse. A key variable will be the
morale of the army. Already parents of conscripts have complained that their
sons, who should have returned home at the end of 2002, "are being used to
kill their coca-growing brothers." Food for the conscripts is scarce and
poor quality, and some of the parents do not know the whereabouts of their
sons.

After a two-day pause in which the Chapare was cleared for traffic, the
government still refused to discuss popular demands under the pressure of
direct action, and it looked like the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the People
was going to be another case of unrealized possibility. But on Wednesday,
January 23, Felipe Quispe became part of the leadership. Thus through their
trade union confederation, the highland Aymara peasants have joined the
departmental trade union federations (CODs); a federation of Aymara and
Quechua communities (CONAMAQ); factory workers, the Coordination for Life
and Water, peasant irrigators, and university students in Cochabamba;
peasant colonizers in the Yungas; peasant federations from Sucre, Potosí,
Cochabamba, Oruro, and part of La Paz; the Bartolina Sisa women's peasant
federation; as well as the unemployed and miners' cooperatives.

In all likelihood, the flow of people and goods will be paralyzed in Bolivia
in the coming days, and it is doubtful that the government will make
concessions without first raising the level of repression dramatically
through State of Siege legislation. If the opposition can maintain its
fragile unity, there is reason to hope that it will obtain the renunciation
of Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Mesa-which would be a popular victory of
historic proportions. Rather than a carbon copy replacement president, a
Constituent Assembly, first put on the table during the water wars of April
2000, might begin to outline a new social order in Bolivia. Though it is
impossible to say how such complex processes will work themselves out,
further radicalization of the anti-neoliberal opposition seems inevitable
for the time being. Let us hope that Lula realizes that the Bolivian
conflict can be another staging ground for Brazilian diplomacy as, under the
umbrella of the World Social Forum, left turns continue to reverberate
throughout South America.

*The P in MIP is for Pachakutic, from pacha, or space-time, and kutic means
turning around-revolution, in the sense of a world turned right side up.

Forrest Hylton is conducting doctoral research in history in Bolivia

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17 >>>WORKERS POWER GLOBAL WEEK 2 February 200
From: NEWSWIRE <newsire@workerspower.com>
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E-newswire of the LRCI
2 February 2003
WELCOME TO ISSUE #129
Workers Power Global Week is the English language e-newsletter of the LRCI.
To subscribe or unsubscribe go to: http://www.workerspower.com/wpglobal/newsform.html
Please forward this to a comrade.
============================================================
BRAZIL: RIFTS REVEALED AT WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
IRAQ: MILITARY TIMETABLE DICTATES FINAL POLITICAL STEPS
IRAQ: EUROPEAN CPs PRAY FOR THEIR GOVERNMENTS TO SEE SENSE
IVORY COAST: PEACE DEAL COLLAPSES BEFORE INK IS DRY

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