From ron at resist.ca Thu Mar 4 11:08:50 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 11:08:50 -0800 Subject: [news] New Revelations about Raid at BC Legislature Message-ID: <40477EC2.5050402@resist.ca> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [BC_Labour_E-NEWS] New Revelations about Raid at BC Legislature Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 17:33:10 -0800 From: bc_labour_enews at bcfed.net Reply-To: fedlist at telus.net, bc_labour_enews at bcfed.net To: 'bc_labour_Enews at bcfed.net' March 2, 2004 New Revelations about Raid at BC Legislature-- Cloud of Scandal over Sale of BC Rail Continues to Grow B.C. Federation of Labour Calls for Halt to Sale of BC Rail and asks for Gary Collins' Resignation Vancouver-The Liberal government must immediately stop the sale of BC Rail after new revelations connect Liberal political aides, and their activities in Finance Minister Gary Collins' office to allegations of criminal breach of trust involving the sale of BC Rail, said B.C. Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair. "This confirms a direct link between the raid on the legislature and the sale of BC Rail. Until the public is fully satisfied there were no criminal activities involving BC Rail, the sale of BC Rail must be stopped," demanded Sinclair. Sinclair commented on the most recent revelation made public in connection with search warrants executed on the legislative offices of the Liberal Finance and Transportation Ministers. "There's also a growing cloud over Finance Minister Gary Collins," said Sinclair, "a breach of trust may have occurred under his watch. To preserve the integrity of his office Collins must step aside until this matter is resolved." Concerns regarding the privatization of BC Rail had been raised last year during the bidding process. "All along the government has conducted secret negotiations and closed door meetings to keep details away from the public. It's a bad deal and the public knows it, and the Liberals have been trying to hide it," said Sinclair. "Now there are clouds of criminal activity and potential criminal breach of trust hang over this deal, communities along the BC Rail line deserve better." "This scandal will sink what little confidence British Columbians have in Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberal government," said Sinclair. "Working families have paid the price for lost services and privatized assets; the only people who have gained under this government are Liberal friends and insiders. Breaking their campaign promise was bad enough, but to allow the sale of BC Rail to proceed would certainly be a moral breach of trust with the voters of BC," said Sinclair. The campaign to stop the sale of BC Rail is continuing and the Federation plans to make representations to the Canada Competition Bureau when the issue is discussed, added Sinclair. The Federation will also continue to support the efforts of the workers and the community in their attempts to hold this government accountable for the sale. -30- For more information contact: Jessie Uppal 604-430-1421 or 604-220-0739. opeiu 15 _______________________________________________ BC_Labour_Enews mailing list BC_Labour_Enews at bcfed.net http://bcfed.net/mailman/listinfo/bc_labour_enews From sharai at resist.ca Thu Mar 4 14:40:47 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 16:40:47 -0600 Subject: [news] Press release PIVOT Message-ID: <4047B06F.9040100@resist.ca> March 2, 2004 Press Advisory - For Immediate Release, March 2, 2004 Minister of Justice supports new Pivot Report on Sex Trade At a forum organized by the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law today, the federal Minister of Justice, Honourable Irwin Cotler, publicly supported key recommendations from Pivot Legal Society's report on sex trade law reform. Pivot's report, entitled Voices for Dignity: A Call to End the Harms Caused by Canada's Sex Trade Laws, was made public on Monday, March 1st. The report presents first hand accounts from 91 sex workers who have lived and worked in the Downtown Eastside. Based on the expert opinion evidence and experiences of sex workers, the report calls for decriminalization of the adult sex trade. The report argues that the current laws violate the liberty, security, equality, and expression rights of sex workers, protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The full report and affidavits are available at www.pivotlegal.org/sextradereport. Minister Cotler praised the Pivot report, and stressed the importance of the evidence from sex workers gathered by Pivot. Cotler committed to a national process aimed at reviewing the criminal prohibitions relating to the sex industry, one which would involve sex workers in a central and meaningful way. He agreed with Pivot's recommendation that the approach must be gender-sensitive, and that the socio-economic factors affecting sex workers would need to be treated as critical in reducing the harms related to sex work. Cotler, a former professor and constitutional law expert, expressed interest in Pivot's analysis of the constitutionality of the current laws regarding the sex trade, and indicated an openness to the possibility of decriminalizing the sex trade. Pivot will continue lobbying the federal government to ensure that the Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws is restruck and hears from sex workers from all aspects of the sex industry with the hope that future legislation respects the human rights of all sex workers. For more information about the Pivot Report Voices for Dignity, click here. - 30 - From resist at resist.ca Fri Mar 5 20:39:16 2004 From: resist at resist.ca (resist at resist.ca) Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 20:39:16 -0800 Subject: [news] NEWS RELEASE - Vancouver Police Brutally Assault Eight Eastside Residents Message-ID: <20040306043916.GA19806@resist.ca> For Immediate Release March 5, 2004 (High resolution photos of assaulted individuals available at http://resist.ca/~vpdbrutality) Vancouver Police Brutally Assault Eight Eastside Residents At approximately 2:30 AM on Sunday, February 29th, members of the Vancouver Police Department attacked six women and two men returning home from a show at the Waldorf. The eight eastside residents were walking up Hastings Street, when police arrived on the scene, and confronted the residents. Women from the group asked why they were being stopped. Responses from the attending officers were hostile as one of the women questioning their actions was shoved and told to "shut up" by the officers. Officers refused to respond to any other questions, provide reason for detainment, or acknowledge their badge numbers to the group, and responded with hostility. The officers became physically aggressive and grabbed one of the women under the guise of trying to arrest her. At this point, several other back up officers arrived at the scene and began to assault the others from the group. Batons and pepper spray at close-range were employed on all of the seven resulting in injuries from bruising to fractured ribs. One woman was hospitalized with an injury to her eye and head, and four people were knocked unconscious at the scene. A 911 call was made at the scene by a witness bystander. Seven people required medical attention on the scene and at the police precinct. "I saw five police kicking and punching one woman who was handcuffed, face down and her feet restrained, she was screaming for help, and I was telling them to stop," said eyewitness Kathleen Yearwood. At the height of the police riot, there were approximately 30 police and 15 cars, and Hastings Street was shut down for two hours. People on the street who were requesting the police stop the violence were threatened with arrest. After the assaults and arrests which continued for over an hour, seven people were held in custody for 18 hours and are now facing criminal charges for obstruction, mischief and assault on police officers. It is suspected that police were particularly cruel to these individuals as they are well-known political activists from the Downtown Eastside community. Witnesses to the event were shocked at the illegality and unprovoked violence from the police. On March 9, 2004 at 9am the seven defendants will be in court for their first appearance. We are asking for your support and donations to assist in legal defense and in moving forward with legal action against the Vancouver Police Department. This is not an isolated incident. This happens to people everyday in the Downtown Eastside. We cannot allow the increased police forces in Vancouver to barricade us in our homes for fear of violent reprisals. -30- Media Contacts: Kathleen Yearwood - 604-561-5724 / 604-255-7915 Jessica Peart - 778-868-8175 (Print copies of photographs available on request.) From resist at resist.ca Fri Mar 5 21:06:29 2004 From: resist at resist.ca (Resist! Collective) Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 21:06:29 -0800 Subject: [news] Vancouver Police Brutally Assault Eight Eastside Residents Message-ID: <40495C55.1010207@resist.ca> This story is posted at http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/5/20241/90854 with a photo. ---- At approximately 2:30 AM on Sunday, February 29th, members of the Vancouver Police Department attacked six women and two men returning home from a show at the Waldorf. The eight eastside residents were walking up Hastings Street, when police arrived on the scene, and confronted the residents. Women from the group asked why they were being stopped. Responses from the attending officers were hostile as one of the women questioning their actions was shoved and told to "shut up" by the officers. Officers refused to respond to any other questions, or provide their badge numbers to the group, and provide reason for detainment, and responded with hostility. The officers became physically aggressive and grabbed one of the women under the guise of trying to arrest her. At this point, several other back up officers arrived at the scene and began to assault the others from the group. Batons and pepper spray at close-range were employed on all of the seven resulting in injuries from bruising to fractured ribs. One woman was hospitalized with an injury to her eye and head, and four people were knocked unconscious at the scene. A 911 call was made at the scene by a witness bystander. Seven people required medical attention on the scene and at the police precinct. ?I saw five police kicking and punching one woman who was handcuffed, face down and her feet restrained, she was screaming for help, and I was telling them to stop.? Eyewitness Kathleen Yearwood. At the height of the police riot, there were approximately 30 police and 15 cars, and Hastings street was shut down for two hoursPeople on the street who were requesting the police stop the violence were threatened with arrest. After the assaults and arrests which continued for over an hour, seven people were held in custody for 18 hours and are now facing criminal charges for obstruction, mischief and assault on police officers. It is suspected that police were particularly cruel to these individuals as they are well-known political activists from the Downtown Eastside community. Witnesses to the event were shocked at the illegality and unprovoked violence from the police. On March 9.2004 at 9am the seven defendents will be in court for their first appearance. We are asking for your support and donations to assist in legal defense and in moving forward with legal action against the Vancouver Police Department. This is not an isolated incident. This happens to people everyday in the Down Town Eastside. We can not allow the increased police forces in Vancouver to barricade us in our homes for fear of violent reprisals. Media Contact: Kathleen Yearwood. 604-561-5724 / 604-255-7915 High-resolution photos available for print. From ron at resist.ca Sat Mar 6 10:15:13 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 10:15:13 -0800 Subject: [news] From his first day in office, Bush was ousting Aristide Message-ID: <404A1531.6060803@resist.ca> Los Angeles Times Thursday, March 4, 2004 >From his first day in office, Bush was ousting Aristide by Jeffrey D. Sachs If the circumstances were not so calamitous, the American- orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical. According to Aristide, American officials in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane standing by to take them to exile. The United States made it clear, he said, that it would provide no protection for him at the official residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged. Indeed, according to Aristide's lawyer, the U.S. blocked reinforcement of Aristide's own security detail. At the airport, Aristide said, U.S. officials refused him entry to the airplane until he handed over a signed letter of resignation. After being hustled aboard, Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours, and he knew nothing of his destination until he and his family were summarily deposited in the Central African Republic. He has since been kept hidden from view. Yet this Keystone Kops coup has apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide has used a cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from Haiti at risk of death and to describe the way his resignation was staged by American forces. The U.S. government dismisses Aristide's charges as ridiculous. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has offered an official version of the events, a blanket denial based on the government's word alone. In essence, Washington is telling us not to look back, only forward. The U.S. government's stonewalling brings to mind Groucho Marx's old line, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" There are several tragedies in this surrealistic episode. The first is the apparent incapacity of the U.S. government to speak honestly about such matters as toppling governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial questions: Did the U.S. summarily deny military protection to Aristide, and if so, why and when? Did the U.S. supply weapons to the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last month with sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had been taken by the U.S. military to the Dominican Republic, next door to Haiti? Why did the U.S. cynically abandon the call of European and Caribbean leaders for a political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had already accepted? Most important, did the U.S. in fact bankroll a coup in Haiti, a scenario that seems likely based on present evidence? Only someone ignorant of U.S. history and of the administrations of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush would dismiss these questions. The United States has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in neighboring Caribbean countries. Ominously, before this week, the most recent such episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election. Some of the players in this round are familiar from the previous Bush administration, including of course Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney. Also key is U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega - a longtime aide to Jesse Helms and a notorious Aristide-hater - widely thought to have been central to the departure of Aristide. He is going to find it much harder to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels who entered Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. Rarely has an episode so brilliantly exposed Santayana's famous aphorism that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members demanded an investigation into the U.S. role in Aristide's overthrow, the first Bush administration laughed them off, just as this administration is doing today in facing new queries from Congressional Black Caucus members. Indeed, those who are questioning the administration about Haiti are being smeared as naive and unpatriotic. Aristide himself is being smeared with ludicrous propaganda and, most cynically of all, is being accused of dereliction in the failure to lift his country out of poverty. In point of fact, this U.S. administration froze all multilateral development assistance to Haiti from the day that George W. Bush came into office, squeezing Haiti's economy dry and causing untold suffering for its citizens. U.S. officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a balance-of-payments crisis, a rise in inflation and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion. Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the media when it comes to asking all the questions that need answers. Just as in the war on Iraq's phony WMD, wherein the mainstream media initially failed to ask questions about the administration's claims, major news organizations have refused to go to the mat over the administration's accounts on Haiti. The media haven't had the gumption to find Aristide and, in failing to do so, to point out that he is being held away from such contact. With a violence-prone U.S. government operating with impunity in many parts of the world, only the public's perseverance in getting at the truth can save us, and others, from our own worst behavior. Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a former economic advisor to governments in Latin America and around the world. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-sachs4mar04,1,4184344.s tory?coll=la-news-comment-opinions From ron at resist.ca Sat Mar 6 11:49:46 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 11:49:46 -0800 Subject: [news] A Wall as a Weapon - Noam Chomsky Message-ID: <404A2B5A.2070501@resist.ca> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23CHOM.html?hp New York Times February 23, 2003 A Wall as a Weapon By Noam Chomsky Cambridge, Mass. - It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else. Careful scrutiny is always in order. Israel's so-called security fence, which is the subject of hearings starting today at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is a case in point. Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security wall if that were an appropriate means. It is also clear where such a wall would be built if security were the guiding concern: inside Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize security, and there would be no international protest or violation of international law. This observation is well understood. While Britain supports America's opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister, Jack Straw, has written that the wall is "unlawful." Another ministry official, who inspected the "security fence," said it should be on the Green Line or "indeed on the Israeli side of the line." A British parliamentary investigative commission also called for the wall to be built on Israeli land, condemning the barrier as part of a "deliberate" Israeli "strategy of bringing the population to heel." What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also - as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians - helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination. Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United Nations estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and settlements had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the West Bank. As the design of the wall was coming into view, the World Bank estimated that it might isolate 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the population, and that it might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West Bank land. And when the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its proposed map, it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16 isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land that Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian state. The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the West Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for drinking. Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes; Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion," the Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote in the daily Haaretz. "Drop by drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally and shock public opinion." The same is true of the regular killings, terror and daily brutality and humiliation of the past 35 years of harsh occupation, while land and resources have been taken for settlers enticed by ample subsidies. It also seems likely that Israel will transfer to the occupied West Bank the 7,500 settlers it said this month it would remove from the Gaza Strip. These Israelis now enjoy ample land and fresh water, while one million Palestinians barely survive, their meager water supplies virtually unusable. Gaza is a cage, and as the city of Rafah in the south is systematically demolished, residents may be blocked from any contact with Egypt and blockaded from the sea. It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli policies - made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if Washington wanted to do so. At most, the Hague hearings will end in an advisory ruling that the wall is illegal. It will change nothing. Any real chance for a political settlement - and for decent lives for the people of the region - depends on the United States. Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance." From ron at resist.ca Sat Mar 6 11:56:02 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 11:56:02 -0800 Subject: [news] PMs ticking time bomb Message-ID: <404A2CD2.5000201@resist.ca> Toronto Star February 24, 2004 PM?s ticking time bomb Police raid on B.C. ?Basi Boys? could turn embarrassing spotlight on Martin?s tactics in ousting of Chr?tien Thomas Walkom The most unpredictable element of a political scandal is its spillover. Even if Prime Minister Paul Martin is able to persuade most Canadians that he had nothing to do with the Quebec sponsorship affair, the controversy may remind voters about other matters the Liberals would prefer forgotten. One such matter is simmering away in British Columbia, sparked by post-Christmas police raids on the homes and offices of key Martin organizers. Up to now, the raids have been virtually ignored by media east of the Rockies, as of little interest to anyone outside B.C. In fact, as Liberals here admit privately, the B.C. business is a time bomb for the Prime Minister. Unlike the Quebec sponsorship scandal, it speaks to something for which Martin cannot escape responsibility ? the ruthless, and at times dubious, tactics he used to oust Jean Chr?tien, take over the Liberal party, and become prime minister. The B.C. events surfaced publicly on Dec. 28 when RCMP and Victoria police raided the offices of two political aides in the provincial Liberal government. Police said the raids were connected to a 20-month investigation into drugs and organized crime. More tellingly, as Victoria police chief Paul Battershill told reporters a few days later, the raids were connected to allegations of "money laundering and proceeds of crime." Initially, the media concentrated on the provincial angle. That made some sense since the two aides, David Basi and his brother-in-law Robert Virk, were important figures in Premier Gordon Campbell?s government. But it soon became clear that the police were casting a wider net. Officers searched the offices of two key Martinites ? Bruce Clark, the Prime Minister?s chief fundraiser on the west coast, and Eric Bornman, communications director for the federal Liberals. As well, police visited Mark Marissen, B.C. campaign chair for Martin?s leadership, and asked him to hand over what he later called important documents he may have inadvertently received. Most attention, however, focused on Basi. In addition to his provincial role, Basi, too, was a key figure in Martin?s successful campaign to take over the federal Liberal party. Described as a bright and energetic organizer, Basi recruited thousands of new Liberals ? many from his own Indo-Canadian community ? to capture riding associations for Martin. Known as Basi?s Boys, the new members flooded ridings. In one particularly high-profile case, they took over the Liberal constituency association of then natural resources minister and Chr?tien supporter Herb Dhaliwal. In another instance, the Basi Boys successfully had their people appointed to the executive of the Esquimault-Juan de Fuca Liberal riding association. That won little public attention ? until early December when, as part of their money-laundering investigation, police raided the home of one of those Basi Boy appointees. Around the same time, police also uncovered a marijuana growing operation at a Vancouver Island property owned by Basi but rented to someone else. The politically sensitive nature of the case has made it unusually opaque. Search warrants authorizing the Liberal raids ? as well as any information backing them ? have been sealed by the courts. As a result, it?s impossible to know the exact nature of the allegations involved. It is worth pointing out, however, that so far no one involved in any of these raids, including Basi, has been charged with anything. Nonetheless, all of this is potentially bad news for Martin. In the midst of an ethics scandal, it reminds the public that his capture of the Liberal crown, and hence the prime ministership, involved tactics that were hardly glorious. To join the Liberals and vote for the party leader, a prospective member must sign a form and pay $10. Under party rules, that fee is not supposed to be paid by someone else. It sounds simple. But in practice, as Liberals themselves admit, various factions end-run the rules by engaging in massive sign-ups in which organizers, rather than the prospective members, pay the $10 fees. That means that the faction with the most blank membership forms and the most money can win. Indeed, one of the keys to Martin?s success over Chr?tien was his ability to change the party rules in key provinces so that ? up until last February ? Martinites had access to the largest number of blank forms. All that was needed then was money for the $10 fees. In B.C., where Liberal membership skyrocketed from 3,000 to about 40,000, that meant about $370,000. Some of this undoubtedly came from the new members themselves. But clearly, some did not. In one riding where the Basi Boys had been active, the Vancouver Sun found some cases of duplicate memberships and others where new members denied paying their own fees. One member turned out to be a dog that had been dead for five years. But he, too, was welcomed to the Liberal party. He even received a Christmas card from the-then jolly but now very beleaguered Martin. Thomas Walkom?s column appears on Tuesday. twalkom at thestar.ca http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic le_Type1&c=Article&cid=1077535862546&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist9 69907626796 From ron at resist.ca Sat Mar 6 12:13:10 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 12:13:10 -0800 Subject: [news] Stopping the FTAA: Venezuela Message-ID: <404A30D6.50005@resist.ca> http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1110 Monday, February 23, 2004 Stopping the FTAA: Venezuela By Deborah James, Global Exchange If social movements are to repeat the recent victory against the WTO in the upcoming FTAA, we must be able to recreate the two key aspects of the winning anti-WTO strategy. The first is the popular protests against the WTO that took place on the streets of Canc?n, led by the global federation of farmers? organizations, Via Campesina. The second was the emergence of strong developing-country alliances. The ?Group of 21? emerged as a powerful new coalition. Of the 21 countries in the Group in Canc?n, 13 were from Latin America. This represents a significant shift in the number of progressive governments in the region. As more Latin Americans reject the corporate globalization promoted by elites, they are electing governments whose policies more closely represent the interests of the majority?poor people. But representing the poor in Latin America often means being subjected to opposition from the U.S. government. If we are to successfully derail the proposed FTAA, we must ensure that our own government is not subverting democracy in our hemisphere. Strengthening Regional Alliances ?Lula? da Silva in Brazil is the most well-known of these new leaders, and the most important in terms of Brazil?s economic strength. Kirschner in Argentina, Gutierrez in Ecuador, and Ch?vez in Venezuela have all started taking a stronger stand in FTAA negotiations, and in promoting regional alliances, such as that between the MercoSur countries and the Andean Community. This is a direct counterweight to the U.S. strategy of using bilaterals (like the U.S.-Chile agreement and CAFTA) and military aid (such as Plan Colombia) to keep countries aligned with U.S. economic interests. Of all of these, Venezuela?s negotiating position in the FTAA most closely resembles the priorities of the social movements. And they are engaging in a massive project of wealth redistribution?in a country that is has the largest reserves of oil outside of the Middle East. In doing so Venezuela has raised the ire of the U.S. government, which has been supporting opposition elements that were responsible for the failed military-business coup of April 2002 against the democratically-elected government. That failed coup was outright praised by Washington?but was reversed by a massive outpouring of hundreds of thousands of citizens in the streets. Stopping the FTAA: Defending Latin American Democracy If we are to achieve our goal of stopping the proposed FTAA, we must work together with our partners in Latin America to strengthen regional alliances. And as U.S. citizens, we must defend democracy in those countries where our own government seeks to destabilize it?precisely because of their governments? pro-poor economic policies. Most importantly, we must ensure that democracy is defended in the social movements? key ally at the FTAA negotiating table?Venezuela?against the efforts of the U.S. government to covertly or overtly destabilize the democratically-elected government. Venezuelan Position on the FTAA In 1998, Venezuelans elected the Indian-Black son of schoolteachers, President Hugo Ch?vez. They then voted to elect a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution, which was approved in 1999 by over 71% of the vote. Their negotiating position in the FTAA is based on this Constitution. Venezuela?s FTAA position mirrors several key aspects of the social movements? critiques; that the negotiating process is undemocratic and untransparent; that the agreement would give rights to corporations at the expense of sovereignty and democracy; and that the privatization of services is a death knell for poor people across the region. The Negotiations Process: Undemocratic, Untransparent Venezuela has charged that the process of negotiations has been undemocratic and lacking in transparency and public participation, and has called for an extension of the January 1, 2005 deadline. ?Only if the negotiation process is truly transparent for society as a whole; for business sectors; workers; indigenous, cultural, and environmental groups; political parties; parliament, and the press will we be able to assert that we are moving toward an integration that can be considered to be a democratic process.? (FTAA-Trade Negotiations Committee Memo, Venezuela, 8-11 April 2003.) Popular Vote: the People Decide According to article 73 of the Constitution, the government would have to hold a popular referendum on the FTAA so that citizens could decide to approve or not approve it. This commitment to citizens directly voting on the FTAA is exactly the primary strategy of the social movements in the hemisphere. More Equality between Countries In addition, they have argued that the proposed FTAA cannot truly be a fair agreement until the member countries are more economically equal. They have put forward a detailed proposal for the creation of Funds for Structural Convergence. This fund, which has now gained the support of 24 nations, would involve a massive shifting of wealth from the rich countries to the smaller, more vulnerable nations, to ensure that inequalities among countries are reduced. National Sovereignty: the Right to Develop and to Create Jobs A basic premise of the FTAA is to reduce the role of the state in domestic policymaking and increase the control of foreign capital over local economies. Venezuela has argued that the state must maintain a role in promoting domestic economic development through use of national resources and state contracts, including tools as technology transfer and performance requirements. They are opposed to opening up investment and government procurement. They were original members of the coalition against introducing these issues into the WTO. For example, oil is the primary source of Venezuela?s income. The national oil company is the largest company in Latin America; its purchasing power as an engine for economic growth is enormous. The amount of jobs created by purchasing domestically?and from small and medium-sized businesses?cannot be overestimated, and is a direct strategy of the administration for job growth. Yet the proposed government procurement chapter of the FTAA would prohibit countries from favoring local industries for state purchasing needs. This is a tool that governments around the world?including the U.S.?have used for decades to help promote local economic growth and create local jobs. Yet now the U.S. wants to prohibit developing countries from employing the same strategies we used to develop and create jobs. People?s Right to Education: No to Privatization Three of the key demands of any social movement of poor people focus on the right to health care, the right to free education, and the right to food security. Privatization of education is prohibited by the Constitution, which guarantees full and free access to education to all citizens. Venezuela is currently carrying out a massively ambitious literacy program, Mision Robinson, to educate the over one million adults who are illiterate. They have built thousands of new elementary schools for the poor, and created a new free university for those high school graduates for whom there was no space in the exclusive universities. These programs exemplify the commitment to the right to education, and are incompatible with privatized education. People?s Right to Health Care, Not Corporate Patent Rights The Constitution assures Venezuelans the right to health care. One of the Venezuelan programs to implement this right is called Barrio Adentro, or the placing of Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods throughout Caracas. In addition, on the crucial health issue of access to medicines, their WTO position states that ?Venezuela recognizes the supremacy of international agreements in the areas of human rights, health, food security, and biodiversity over the intellectual property rights of the transnational corporations. Therefore, it is necessary to defend and preserve the right to grant compulsory licenses to national companies so that they can produce generic versions of patented medicines and foods...? (WTO position) Right to Food Security: No to Biopiracy Agriculture is a key sector for moving the country out of dependence on oil exports and moving towards Food Sovereignty through sustainable agriculture, a priority outlined in Article 305 of the Constitution. As founding members of the G21 in Canc?n, Venezuela called for the reduction of protectionist export subsidies of rich countries, and the right of countries to support their agricultural sectors to preserve food sovereignty, cultural diversity, and traditional rural livelihoods. Regarding biopiracy and seed patenting, Venezuela ?also supports the right of indigenous peoples and peasants to protect their traditional knowledge, and the right of farmers to protect and utilize the seeds that they themselves produce.? (WTO position) The Bolivarian Alternative: Building People?s Regionalism Social movements in the hemisphere have learned that we must promote our own vision of an alternative to the proposed FTAA?the Alternative Agreement for the Americas. Venezuela has also produced a model vision of how nations in the region could work towards regional integration, based on shared concern for the environment, health, education, food security, and human rights. They developed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas?ALBA, in Spanish?as a counterweight to the argument that the only path towards regional integration is economic subservience to the corporate elite in the north. ALBA is the only national proposal that closely mirrors the vision of the social movements in the hemisphere, and is an important step towards imagining that alternative can be created; that Another World Is Possible. Stopping the FTAA: Defending Democracy in Venezuela If we are to achieve our goal, which we must, of stopping the proposed FTAA, we must strengthen our alliances across the continent. We must work together with social movements to assure that governments are held accountable to the demands of the people. And we must ensure that our own government does not, in our name, help destabilize the most committed ally of the social movements at the negotiating table?Venezuela. See also: Interview with Deborah James of Global Exchange: ?Venezuela is the number one ally of the social movements? From ron at resist.ca Sat Mar 6 12:27:59 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 12:27:59 -0800 Subject: [news] Mr Moyo says the US can "go to hell" Message-ID: <404A344F.9080505@resist.ca> seems more and more governments are openly criticizing the US for their foreign policy these days. ..... http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1059337.htm Australian Broadcasting Company March 5, 2004 Zimbabwe condemns wider sanctions By Africa correspondent Sally Sara Zimbabwe has reacted angrily to the strengthening of sanctions by the United States and Australia. Zimbabwean Information Minister Jonathan Moyo has condemned the sanctions and says they will not have any affect. Mr Moyo says the US can "go to hell". He says US officials are imperialists who would not know democracy if it "hit them in the face". A spokesman for President Robert Mugabe has also accused Australia of taking senseless action against Zimbabwe. The Federal Government has extended travel restrictions to include senior officials from Zimbabwe's state-owned companies. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the Australia has strengthened the sanctions because of its growing concern about the plight of the people of Zimbabwe. From lombrenoire at tao.ca Sat Mar 6 23:47:35 2004 From: lombrenoire at tao.ca (l'ombre noire) Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 02:47:35 -0500 Subject: [news] Bring Mohamed Home! National Day of Action (Tuesday, March 9, 2004) Message-ID: <20040307074735.GD19724@tao.ca> ----- Forwarded message from No One Is Illegal Montreal ----- [For Montreal-area readers: A support demo for Mohamed Cherfi will take place this coming TUESDAY, March 9, 2004 between 4-6pm. The demo will take place at the offices of Immigration Canada at 1010 St-Antoine West (corner of Peel, near metro Bonaventure). Bring your banners, placards and noisemakers, and spread the word. This e-mail contains : - An Appeal by the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians and supporters in Montreal for a National Day of Action on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - An English translation of the most recent press release by the Solidarity Committee with Mohamed Cherfi in Quebec City (March 6, 2004) - Statement by Mohamed Cherfi on taking sanctuary (February 18, 2004); - The text of a flyer that will be used in the Montreal-area to mobilize around Mohamed?s case (dated March 7, 2004)] A Solidarity Committee for Mohamed is active in Quebec City. They can be reached at 418-262-0144 or solimo2004 at yahoo.fr. They also maintain a website in French at http://www.mohamed.levillage.org The No One Is Illegal Campaign in Montreal can be reached at nooneisillegal at tao.ca or 514-859-9023.] ----- ---> AN APPEAL BY THE ACTION COMMITTEE OF NON-STATUS ALGERIANS BRING MOHAMED HOME! A NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION - MARCH 9, 2004 Please post and forward widely Saturday, March 6, 2004 Yesterday, dozens of police officers forcibly entered a Quebec City church to arrest a non-status Algerian refugee, Mohamed Cherfi. Within hours, Mohamed was deported to the United States and is now in a prison cell. Mohamed's supporters in Montreal will be gathering this TUESDAY to denounce the treatment of Mohamed, and to support the cause of all non-status persons in Canada. The Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians and their supporters are calling for demonstrations at the offices of Immigration Canada and the new Border Services Agency. At present, we are expecting demonstrations in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. We encourage actions and demos across the country. WE WILL BE DEMANDING: the regularization of all non-status Algerians; an end to deportations; a return of the moratorium on deportations to Algeria; the return of Mohamed Cherfi to Canada from the United States WE WILL ALSO BE DENOUNCING: the Quebec City police, Quebec Immigration Minister Michele Courchesne, federal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro and federal Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan (responsible for the Border Services Agency), for their role in violating the sanctuary of the Saint-Pierre United Church in Quebec City, and in summarily deporting Mohamed Cherfi to the United States. If you are organizing a demonstration, or to stay in touch, please contact: nooneisillegal at tao.ca or phone 514-859-9023. If you are outraged by the violation of sanctuary at the Saint-Pierre United Church, we encourage you also to express your anger, politely but firmly, to Ministers Michelle Courchesne (Immigration Quebec), Judy Sgro (Immigration Canada) and Anne McLellan (Public Security Minister, responsible for the Border Services Agency). Please re-iterate the basic demands of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians, and demand also the return of Mohamed Cherfi to Canada. You can write, fax or phone the ministers at the following addresses : Michelle Courchesne Cabinet de la ministre Ministere des Relations avec les citoyens et de l'Immigration Edifice Gerald-Godin 360, rue McGill, 4e ?tage Montreal (Quebec) H2Y 2E9 Fax: (514) 864-2899 Tel: (514) 873-9940 E-mail: cabinet at mrci.gouv.qc.ca Judy Sgro, P.C., M.P. Citizenship and Immigration Canada Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1 Fax: 613-947-8319 Tel: 613-992-7774 E-mail: Minister at cic.gc.ca Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P. Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness c/o Solicitor General of Canada Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6 Fax: 613-990-9077 Tel: 613-991-2924 E-mail: McClellan.A at parl.gc.ca MONTREAL DEMONSTRATION IN SOLIDARITY WITH MOHAMED CHERFI : TUESDAY, MARCH 9 4-6 pm At the offices of Immigration Canada, 1010 Saint-Antoine West (metro Bonaventure) Bring your banners, placards and noisemakers. ----- BACKGROUND : For background, we have included three items : 1) An English translation of the most recent press release by the Solidarity Committee for Mohamed Cherfi in Quebec City (March 6, 2004); 2) Statement by Mohamed Cherfi on taking sanctuary (February 18, 2004); 3) The text of a flyer that will be used in the Montreal-area to mobilize around Mohamed?s case (dated March 7, 2004) ----- ---> PRESS RELEASE BY THE SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE FOR MOHAMED CHERFI (QUEBEC CITY) It's not too late: Bring Mohamed Home! The Canadian authorities have this power, let's make them use it Saturday March 6 2004 (translated from the original French) Quebec City, March 6 2004 - The Solidarity Committee for Mohamed Cherfi and Pastor Gerald Dore of the Saint-Pierre United Church denounce the summary arrest of Mohamed Cherfi, Algerian refugee. Mohamed Cherfi had been in sanctuary at Saint-Pierre United Church since February 10 in order to avoid deportation to Algeria where he fears for his life. This arrest breaks a longstanding secular tradition of right to sanctuary, the first time such an outrage has occurred in Canada. "The United Church, on whose ground Mohamed Cherfi had taken refuge, considers it a moral duty to offer asylum to any person whose life is endanger if the State does not fulfil its responsibilities," said Gerald Dore. The event is all the more significant considering that only a political decision could have prompted such an intervention. This is an undeniable case of miscarriage of justice on the part of the authorities of Quebec and Canada. A warrant for arrest was emitted by the Municial court of Montreal - under the absurd pretext that in taking sanctuary, Cherfi changed his address without informing the authorities - and then immediately withdrawn upon Cherfi's arrest. All this in order to illegally arrest and detain Cherfi without ever allowing him his right to defend himself in a court of law. What seems at first glance to be an ordinary police operation, seems upon further examination to be an abuse of the rule of law, orchestrated by high-level officials in order to silence a strong defender of human rights. This is the gravest (though not the first) in a series of arbitrary and questionable practices in the case of Mohamed Cherfi, practices which are not worthy of a state committed to democracy and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms. All this against a person whose only crime is to have defended justice publicly and courageously. "He thought he had found a country where freedom of _expression, of association and of assembly were respected, unlike his country of origin Algeria," said Louise Boivin, Cherfi's partner. What is now at issue is to ensure that the government authorities will respect the most fundamental rights and freedoms of a democratic society. The ministers concerned still have the power to reverse their decision and accord to Mohamed Cherfi his fundamental rights, as upheld in the international conventions to which Canada is a signatory. We call on Michelle Courchesne, who is Quebec's Minister for Citizen Relations and Immigration and who has spent the past months consulting with the public to determine the positions of her government in matters of immigration. What message do we send to immigrants with procedures like this? We call on the federal authorities to ensure a rapid return of Mohamed Cherfi to Canada, on the basis of the most obvious humanitarian considerations. Ministers Judy Sgro (Immigration) and Anne McLellan (Public Safety), Minister Denis Coderre (Privy Council Minister who ensures the coordination between these two departments) and Prime Minister Paul Martin, have the power to intervene with American officials and allow Mohamed to return home to Canada. These officials have the power and the duty to intervene. -30- Solidarity Committee for Mohamed Cherfi (418) 262-0144 solimo2004 at yahoo.fr http://www.mohamed.levillage.org ----- ---> STATEMENT BY MOHAMED CHERFI ON TAKING SANCTUARY Statement by Mohamed Cherfi February 18, 2004 Saint-Pierre United Church, Quebec City (translated from the original French) I, Mohamed Cherfi, have taken sanctuary in the Saint-Pierre United Church in Quebec City, rather than presenting myself for an appointment at the offices of Immigration Canada in Montreal last February 10. I risked being put into detention due to my refusal to collaborate with a deportation that would put my life in danger. It is not with a cheerful heart that I have come to take this step; it was the only option possible so that I could continue to try to convince the public and immigration authorities of the need for protection, while at the same time assuring my personal safety. The Canadian immigration authorities had a warrant for my deportation to the United States, the country from which I entered Canada. The American authorities would put me in detention until my deportation to Algeria. As asserted in a letter by Lucie Lemonde -- the Vice-President of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (la Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l'Homme, FIDH) -- recognizing my need for protection: my deportation to Algeria via the United States will put my life in danger due to the systematic violation of human rights (disappearances, torture, imprisonment) that have taken place, principally against the defenders of human rights. For having been the spokesperson of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians for almost two years, and having publicly expressed criticisms against the Algerian regime, I am exposed to serious risks. The report that the FIDH will submit to the UN Human Rights Commission in March, brings attention to the dramatic situation in Algeria, where a civil conflict that has lasted for more than ten years has resulted in 150,000 deaths and more than 7000 disappearances. The state of emergency continues, which allows for the systematic violation of human rights. Moreover, the Algerian authorities have refused access to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, the FIDH and other organizations, so that they may investigate the situation. I asked for political refuge in Canada as a conscientious objector, having refused to do compulsory military service that would have forced me into the civil conflict in Algeria. Like numerous other people who are refugees from war and do not manage to have their political status recognized, I suffered a refusal as a refugee claimant. Still, I was temporarily protected from removal by a moratorium on deportations to Algeria put into effect by the Canadian government between March 1997 and April 2002, due to the assertive presence of 1060 asylum seekers of Algerian origin. In the face of our imminent deportation, we came together as the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians, of which I was the main spokesperson. In October 2002, the Quebec and Canadian immigration authorities finally put into place a procedure to regularize Algerians who were no longer protected by the moratorium. However, this process was based on the process of selection, and not on the assurance of protection from deportation to a country in conflict. Moreover, the selection process was based on criteria linked to an evaluation of our ability to "integrate" into Quebec society, a very ambiguous and arbitrary process, in particular for war refugees who have lived for years without status and with the continual anxiety of being eventually deported. I have found myself, at the end of the day, among the people refused within the framework of the selection procedure, with the explanation that I lack "integration" into Quebec society. Even while the Quebec Immigration Minister -- Michelle Courchesne -- consented to review my file and the file of other refused claimants, and even before her negative response was conveyed to me on January 22, I received a notice from federal authorities that would begin the process of my deportation. I ask today that the Canadian and Quebec immigration authorities give me protection by according me the status to live in Canada, in consideration of the civil conflict in Algeria and the risk of my deportation to Algeria via the United States. These risks are linked to the fact that I was the spokesperson of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians for almost two years, and in Algeria, the defenders of human rights are prime targets. -- Mohamed Cherfi ----- ---> TEXT OF FLYER TO BE USED IN THE MONTREAL-AREA BRING MOHAMED HOME! SOLIDARITY WITH CANADA'S NON-STATUS ALGERIANS Sunday, March 7, 2004 Mohamed Cherfi, a non-status Algerian who has resided in Canada for six years, was deported to the United States this past Friday. His sanctuary inside the Saint-Pierre United Church was violated when at least 15 police forcibly entered to arrest him. Without any sort of due process, Mohamed was deported to the United States where he now sits in a prison cell. Mohamed was an outspoken member of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians, and their spokesperson. Due in large part to the tireless work of Mohamed, hundreds of non-status Algerians were regularized in Quebec as immigrants. However, Mohamed was himself refused as an immigrant to Quebec on the pretext that he was not adequately "integrated". Mohamed is a fluent speaker of French and trained as a French teacher. Here are some details concerning the work of Mohamed Cherfi in the past two years: * He was the person who accompanied people living underground to Immigration Canada to have warrants for their arrest and deportation orders revoked. (A lawyer's work: $300 per person.) * He was the person who volunteered to fill out the applications of more than fifty non-status Algerians in need, most of whom were subsequently accepted. (A lawyer's work: $1,500 per person.) * He was the person who put his body and soul into work for the Action Committee every day for the past 2 yearas. (A community organizer's work: $30,000 per year.) * He was the person who raised public awareness about the injustice faced by his compatriots. (A Coordinator of Public Relations' work: $40,000 per year.) * He is the person affectionately called the guardian angel of non-status Algerians, the public scribe, the psychologist for those in distress, and finally, the friend. ($: invaluable.) * He is the person who found himself in jail 3 times in 6 months for his involvement in the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians. He and others were chained up, beaten and brutally arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Minister Coderre?s offices last May 29th, in solidarity with those excluded from the regularisation procedure (See photo: Burns with electrical shocks from Taser guns that Mohamed and others received.) Prior to this struggle, Mohamed did not have a criminal record and had never had any contact with police. Like Mohamed, approximately 150 men, women and children have been rejected and will be deported to Algeria if we remain indifferent. We demand the immediate return of Mohamed Cherfi, and denounce the actions of Immigration Canada, Immigration Quebec, the Ministry of Public Security and the Quebec City Police. Moreover, we re-iterate the original demands of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians: the regularization of all non-status persons; an end to deportations; the return of the moratorium on deportations to Algeria. JOIN US IN MONTREAL AS PART OF A NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST IN SOLIDARITY WITH MOHAMED CHERFI ... TUESDAY, March 9, 4-6pm at Immigration Canada, 1010 St-Antoine West (metro Bonaventure) Bring your banners, placards and noisemakers! For more information on future actions: 514-859-9023 or nooneisillegal at tao.ca ----- End forwarded message ----- From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 10:49:58 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 10:49:58 -0800 Subject: [news] Wildcat Saves 54 Jobs Message-ID: <404B6ED6.3040608@resist.ca> Feb. 6, 2004 *City workers wildcat saves 54 jobs *QUESNEL, B.C. - City workers saved 54 jobs by walking off the job on Feb. 4 to protest a threat to contract out work at the arena and recreation centre. "The threat of layoffs sparked the strike," Local 1050 president Dan Weiman said. "But our members feel that this is just a plan to privatize the facilities at the expense of the 54 employees who they have just commended for giving excellent service." About 150 workers, members of Locals 1050(arena) and Local 3176 (swimming pool), joined the half-day work stoppage and protested at city hall earlier in the week. "Mayor Nate Bello handled this situation badly from the start," Weiman said. "He and council basically hid behind a prepared statement, thinking they could just carry on with the layoffs." The statement talked of a 'seamless' transition of staff from the city to the Cariboo Regional District. But it admitted to a grey area around successorship or the right of employees to keep their collectively bargained rights if moved to another location. There is more to the issue than the $54,000 it would take to keep the operations under city management, he added. But this amount would make it possible for all employees to remain working for another year while negotiations continue between the two levels of government. "It makes us wonder if they can't afford $54,000 to keep us working, where they will find the $280,000 it will cost in severance packages to get us to leave," Weiman said. City council and the CRD reached an agreement at meeting in Williams Lake today to postpone the plan for one year. Betty Walters is president of Local 3176 and Bernie Schneider is the CUPE national representative for both locals. www.cupe.bc.ca From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 10:51:54 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 10:51:54 -0800 Subject: [news] Rene & Boucher Lakes Threatened by Oil Companies Message-ID: <404B6F4A.6060909@resist.ca> this is from last week... Subject: Emergency Action Message FYI: As you may be aware, the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations have made attempts through negotiations and in the courts to halt companies from drilling for natural gas in area known as the Peace - Moberly Tract; a critical wildlife refuge and cultural use area. In the BC Supreme Court, Saulteau First Nation failed to convince Justice Cohen that comprehensive enviornmental and cultural stuides were required prior to drilling. Vintage Energy will not be in a postion to drill until next December under winter conditions. This week, community members of Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations urged Saulteau to appeal the decision. In response, Vintage Energy notified the two First Nations that they intended to proceed with the construction of the access road and well site. It appears that this was done with the purpose of rendering any further legal action moot. Other companies such as EnCana and Lousiana based, Peace River Corporation looking to access the area to explore for and develop conventional and coal bed methane gas. In the interim, community members have held meetings and decided to send people out the Tract to support the elders and hunters already in the area carrying out winter / spring bush activities. The majority of community contractors have acted in unity with the band councils and community members and have refused offers of employment and contract opportunities. Community members have also set up check points at key access points around the Peace - Moberly Tract. Tensions are high and the community is awaiting any movement by Vintage or other companies over the coming days and weeks. A community member passed this message to me for distribution. Saulteau First Nation will be issuing a Press Release in the coming days. EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE Februiary 24, 2004 Rene & Boucher Lakes Threatened by Oil Companies Oil companies are hours away from building an access road into the Rene and Boucher Lakes area: an important wildlife refuge, cultural and spiritual use area for the People of Saulteau and West Moberly. The first company, Vintage Energy, is about to move equipment into the area to head off further legal action by the band councils and action by the people. They want to gain a foothold in the area so that they can begin a massive program of drilling. This will impact the People of Saulteau and West Moberly's culture, way of life and rights guaranteed under Treaty 8. . The band councils have used peaceful and legal means to prevent companies from drilling until comprehensive environmental and cultural studies are completed. The companies have refused to wait and are forcing their way into this precious area. The People of Saulteau and West Moberly Lake ask for yout immediate support, assistance and presence at the camp. If our rights can threatened by the oil companies, so can yours. Act in support and in unity. Please join us at our cultural camp at the Rene and Boucher Lakes area. Travel to the Saulteau reserve and you will be proivded directions. The Saulteau reserve is located between Hudson's Hope and Chetwyn, BC at Moberly Lake on Highway 29. The People of Saulteau and West Moberly From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 10:59:32 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 10:59:32 -0800 Subject: [news] McDonald's in Israel Confirms 'no-Arabic' Message-ID: <404B7114.90103@resist.ca> McDonald's Confirms 'no-Arabic' policy at its restaurants in Israel Ali Abunimah & Nigel Parry, The Electronic Intifada, 5 March 2004 McDonald's Corporation today confirmed that it has a policy banning its employees from speaking Arabic in its restaurants in Israel, despite the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel form 20% of its workforce, and Arabic is one of the two official languages of Israel. The Corporation denied, however, that Abeer Zinaty, a former "Excellent Worker 2003 -- McDonald's Israel," was fired because she spoke Arabic on the job. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah received a statement from Julie Pottebaum, a spokesperson for Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's corporation, after EI contacted the company about the allegations contained in an article in Al-Ahram Weekly. EI also issued an action alert to its readers, prompting calls and emails from all over the world, urging McDonald's to investigate allegations that it had a no-Arabic policy, and that at least one employee had been fired for violating it. EI received copies of emails sent to McDonald's from concerned readers in the US, the Czech Republic, and Jordan among other countries. The McDonald's statement said that it was "absolutely not true" that Abeer Zinaty had been fired because she spoke Arabic on the job, and asserted that, "her employment was terminated by her supervisor, a Palestinian Arab who also speaks Arab, for performance-related reasons." At present EI cannot evaluate McDonald's claim specifically regarding the case of Abeer Zinaty, but is making efforts to obtain further information. At the same time we are outraged that McDonald's has confirmed that it has banned the use of Arabic by employees at its 80 restaurants in Israel. The McDonald's statement said: "As the largest quick-service restaurant employer in Israel, [McDonald's Israel is] proud that about 20% of its employees are Israeli Arabs and another 20% are Russian immigrants, which reflects the general population of Israel. Israeli Arabs and Russian immigrants are also represented in the many levels of management. While Hebrew, the common language between all employees, is required to be spoken when on duty in order to best conduct business and best serve our customers, no one has ever been let go for speaking their own language." EI can see no justification for banning Palestinian citizens of Israel from using Arabic, their native language, a native language of the country and one of only two official languages of Israel. This policy directly contradicts McDonald's stated principles encouraging and celebrating diversity, fairness and respect for all its employees. It not only discriminates against Arabic-speaking employees, but also Arabic-speaking customers. It is unimaginable that in its American restaurants, McDonald's would prohibit the use of Spanish, the most-commonly spoken language in the United States after English. In a context where Palestinian citizens of Israel face documented, systematic discrimination in employment, education and public services, McDonald's ought to be setting an example of equal treatment for all. Instead, it has, like so many other companies working in Israel, apparently chosen to make its Arab employees and patrons second class citizens. In light of McDonald's admission of its no-Arabic policy, we urge our readers who are concerned about this issue to continue to contact McDonald's Corporation: The Solution Contact McDonald's Corporation in the United States to: Express your views about their stated policy of requiring all employees in McDonald's Israel restaurants to speak Hebrew, and prohibiting its Arab employees from speaking their own language with each other or with customers, even though Arabic is native to the country, and one of the two official languages of Israel; Demand that McDonald's Corporation immediately require McDonald's Israel to rescind its no-Arabic policy and respect the rights and dignity of its Arab employees and customers; You may contact McDonald's by the following means: Mail: Mr. Jim Cantalupo Chief Executive Officer McDonald's Corporation McDonald's Plaza Oak Brook, IL 60523 Telephone: 1-800-244-6227 E-mail: Via McDonald's contact page Please write original letters and do not simply copy & paste the information above. As always, be brief, polite, quote accurately, and include your name, address, and telephone number Send a copy of your letter or any response you receive to info at electronicintifada.net From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 11:40:03 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 11:40:03 -0800 Subject: [news] What Is the AFL-CIO doing in Venezuela? Message-ID: <404B7A93.1070408@resist.ca> http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=5074?ionID=45 ZNet | Venezuela March 02, 2004 The Question Remains: What Is the AFL-CIO doing in Venezuela? by Alberto Ruiz On April 25, 2002, shortly after the short-lived coup which ousted President Hugo Chavez, the New York Times ran an article entitled, "U.S. Bankrolling Is Under Scrutiny for Ties to Chavez Ouster." In this article, which detailed numerous grants given by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to various pro-coup groups in Venezuela prior to the coup, Times writer Christopher Marquis wrote: "[o]f particular concern is $154,377 given by the endowment to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the AFL-CIO, to assist the main Venezuelan labor union in advancing labor rights." As the Times noted, "The Venezuelan union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, led the work stoppages that galvanized the opposition to Mr. Chavez. The union's leader, Carlos Ortega, worked closely with Pedro Carmona Estanga, the businessman who briefly took over from Mr. Chavez, in challenging the government." This Times article caused much embarassment for the AFL-CIO. In response to this article, Stan Gacek, AFL-CIO International Affairs Assistant Director, wrote an open letter explaining that the monies which went to the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers ["CTV"] were for internal union elections with the intent to democratize the CTV. He was adamant that the monies were not intended to assist the CTV in overthrowing Chavez. He also criticized the critics of the AFL-CIO's aid to the CTV for not contacting him directly about the wherefores of this monetary assistance. However, an August 18, 2002 article in the Boston Globe which received very little attention placed Gacek's claims about the money's purposes into doubt. This article, entitled "US Tax Dollars Helped Finance Some Chavez Foes, Review Finds," reported that the CTV's claims about the aid's purposes conflicted with those of the AFL-CIO. As the article noted, "[p]art of the grant, distributed by the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity . . . was supposed to have paid for union elections in November. But the money is being used for courses at the confederation's training institute, said institute director Jesus Urbieta." Even this claim by Urbieta was put into doubt by Alfredo Ramos, a member of the CTV executive committee and Chavez opponent, who quipped in the article that "the institute operates without financial oversight" and that "'[t]hey don't have to show their books.'" And, the Boston Globe reported that in the case of other monies sent by the NED to pro-coup groups in Venezuela, there is proof that the monies did not go for the purposes the other pass-throughs for the NED, such as the International Republican Institute, claimed. Curiously, while Gacek had complained that critics had failed to contact him for an explanation about the aid to the CTV, the Boston Globe reported that "[n]either the endowment nor the AFL-CIO's labor solidarity center responded to repeated requests for interviews." To deflect criticism about the aid to the CTV, the AFL-CIO has publicly claimed that the CTV did not have anything to do with the coup against Chavez. However, as the Boston Globe reported in the above-cited article, "the Venezuelan media broadcast a recorded telephone conversation between [exiled former president Carlos Andres] Perez and Carlos Ortega, president of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, in which the pair plotted against Chavez." Moreover, the AFL-CIO has privately conceded that the CTV leadership did have participation in the coup against Chavez. This brings us to current events. The embarassment suffered by the AFL-CIO over its pre-coup assistance to the CTV has not deterred it from continuing to aid the CTV subsequent to the coup. In response to a FOIA request by the Venezuela Solidarity Committee, documents have surfaced which demonstrate the AFL-CIO has continued to support the CTV up through the year 2003 -- again with NED monies. See, www.venezuelafoia.infor/NED/ACILS-CTV/pages/ACILS-B10.htm. Thus, the Venezuela Solidarity Committee has posted the grant agreement entered into between the NED and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center on April 1, 2003. This agreement shows that the Solidarity Center accepted $161,000 from the NED to continue programmatic work with the CTV, and some of this money was earmarked directly for CTV staff and travel expenses. Not surprisingly, Harry Kamberis, a former State Department employee himself and a holdover from the days in which the AFL-CIO was openly collaborating with the U.S. State Department and CIA abroad, signed this grant agreement in his capacity as Executive Director of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center. In this agreement, the Solidarity Center, making an obligue reference to the role of the CTV's collaboration with business interests in the April, 2002 coup against Chavez, acknowledges that the CTV's attempt to democratize itself and to defend labor rights continue to be "threatened by the attempts of some members of the CTV leadership to embark on a political agenda, and engage in political alliances, that have at best questionable support from the membership." Yet, the continued participation of "members of the CTV leadership" in the advancement of what is clearly a right-wing and militantly anti-Chavez agenda, even in the face of questionable support from the rank-n-file, does not deter the AFL-CIO from continuing to support the CTV with NED monies to the tune of $161,000. The AFL-CIO's continued support for the CTV is disturbing, especially given the benefit of hindsight the AFL-CIO has from the events of April of 2002 when the CTV participated in the coup against President Chavez. After this coup, the AFL-CIO, which frankly was lucky the coup was not successful lest it forever be blamed for its at least perceived role in it, could have acknolweged an error in judgment and changed course. Yet, it continued to accept monies from the right-wing NED to continue its support for the CTV. The question is why. And, the answer depends upon what individuals you are talking about in the AFL. As for people like Stan Gacek, I truly believe that he is well-intentioned and would not willingly be involved in a coup attempt against a foreign sovereign. The same is true of many well-intentioned people at the AFL-CIO and Solidarity Center. The worst you can say about such well-intentioned people is that they are unwittingly allowing themselves to be instruments of the State Department and NED in order to continue the good work they are doing elsewhere in the world -- at least 75% of the funding for the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center coming from the U.S. government, including the State Department. However, the same cannot be said of people like Harry Kamberis who continues to head the Solidarity Center despite the fact that he was involved with AFL-CIO International Affairs in the days that it assisted U.S. covert operations abroad with tragic results. Kamberis presumably knows about the true wherefores of the monies the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center has been channeling from the NED to the CTV in Venezuela, and those associated withe labor movement must prevail upon Kamberis to provide explanations. At the moment, while it is Stan Gacek who continues to defend the AFL-CIO's policies in Venezuela, Kamberis remains silent about these policies. In the final analysis, Harry Kamberis remains for the very reason that even well-intentioned individuals in the Solidarity Center tolerate the questionable role of the Solidarity Center in Venezuela -- the indemic relationship of the AFL-CIO and Solidarity Center with the U.S. government which is a consequence of the government funding the Solidarity Center receives and believes it needs for its continued existence. Kamberis was kept on after the changes in the AFL-CIO amidst great controversy because the AFL-CIO believed that he could continue to secure government funding. The AFL-CIO was correct about this; he has helped to secure such funding. However, at what price? Many of us in the labor movement believe the price of the AFL-CIO's credibility abroad as well as the price which has already been paid and might be paid in the future by Venezuelans for the AFL-CIO's continued support of an organization actively involved in the coup against Chavez and still involved in attempts to unseat this democratically-elected president, is simply too great. The AFL-CIO must end its deal with the devil, forego aid from the U.S. government and NED, rid itself of Harry Kamberis and thereby ensure an independent course in international affairs. If it does not take these actions, the good intentions of the vast majority of the Solidarity Center's staff will not mean a lick; they will have to pay back the U.S. government for its heavy assistance one way or another. For now, it appears that the Solidarity Center is making its payback in Venezuela. From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 12:05:59 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 12:05:59 -0800 Subject: [news] OCAP Crashes Mills Press Conference Message-ID: <404B80A7.30308@resist.ca> OCAP CRASHES DENNIS MILLS PRESS CONFERENCE On Friday, February 27, OCAP finally got a chance to repay Liberal MP Dennis Mills for his crass and cyncial dishonesty around the issue of housing for the homeless. His showpiece press conference on the 38th Floor of the luxurious Harbour Castle Hotel around 'Harbourfront Development' was brought to a grinding halt by an OCAP delegation. On November 8 of last year, OCAP took over an empty building at 558 Gerrard to demand that it become housing. Mills pledged that if we ended the occupation before police moved in, he would ensure that the building would become social housing within thirty days - or he would resign as a member of Parliament. Over three months later, the building stands empty and no deal has been struck to change that. That being so, why is Mills still here? The press conference we intervened at could not have been a more disgusting manifestation of privilege. In a ritzy hotel, with a panoramic view of the Toronto shoreline, a veritable Who's Who of local political and economic elite had gathered to announce their plans for profit driven urban development. They had expected a seamless exercise in self-congratulation but the best laid plans of Liberal Ministers and their hangers-on do not always go according to the script. A 30 member OCAP delegation had entered the event and positioned itself throughout the room. Fellow Liberal Art Eggleton kicked the event off by declaring his pride in the 'activist caucus' he was part of and introduced Mills as a man 'who gets things done'. As Mills approached the podium, our delegation moved to confront him. Why had he not told the truth? Why did he not turn 558 Gerrard into housing and dare until yesterday to still claim on his website that it would be converted? How could anyone take anything he said seriously, when he lacked the will or ability to open one site for the homeless? Why was he still warming his chair on Parliament Hill when, if he had a shred of integrity, he would honour his promise and resign? The angry questions and statements gave way to a chant of 'Denis Mills, Resign' and the Liberal entouage gave up the game and withdrew from the room. We made clear to media and Mills' admirers alike that his written promise to step down will not be set aside with the slick ease he had hoped for. Since he refuses to leave the stage, we are here to help his departure along. After the OCAP delegation left the hotel, the monied interests did their best to put on a brave face and continue. Mills had the gall to tell the cameras that he has a vision for 6,000 units of 'mixed housing' for the waterfront area. What stock should be put on such a vague promise coming as it does from a man who can't open one building for the homeless is a rather serious question. Moreover, given the experiences of poor neighbourhoods over the last number of years, the mantra of 'mixed neighbourhoods' is one we have learned to greet with extreme suspicion. Condos and upscale housing is where the developers make their money and they have precious little interest in housing the poor. On the contrary, the agenda is to socially cleanse poor areas and demolish low income housing projects so that the central area of the City can be redeveloped for the upwardly mobile. Token and declining percentages of 'affordable housing' within this process will not prevent the relentless drive to push the poor out and the defence of existing communities must be taken up. Mills stands exposed for the faker he is. He thought to posture on the issue of social housing, deliver nothing and come out of the whole affair smelling like a rose. But he miscalculated. The look of fear and loathing on his face was a picture we enjoyed on behalf of all those he has left to sleep on the streets. From ron at resist.ca Sun Mar 7 12:08:49 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 12:08:49 -0800 Subject: [news] Church Sanctuary violated in Quebec City Message-ID: <404B8151.70103@resist.ca> CHURCH SANCTUARY VIOLATED IN QUEBEC CITY - MOHAMED CHERFI ARRESTED PHONE / FAX / EMAIL / PHONE / FAX / EMAIL MONTREAL UPDATE ---> FOR PEOPLE IN THE MONTREAL-AREA: There will be a vigil for Mohamed at Immigration Canada (1010 St-Antoine Ouest, metro Bonaventure) beginning at 4pm this afternoon (Friday). We have information that Mohamed is being transported to Montreal for an eventual removal order. Please come and show your solidarity with Mohamed Cherfi! Friday, March 5, 2:30pm -- Members of the No One Is Illegal Campaign in Montreal have learned that Mohamed Cherfi has been arrested in Quebec City. Mohamed had been in sanctuary inside the Saint-Pierre United Church, on the invitation of the church's pastor, the Reverend Gerald Dore. According to eyewitness reports in Quebec City, at least 15 police officers from the City of Quebec broke into the church at approximately 12:45pm this afternoon to arrest Mohamed. The police claimed to have an arrest warrant for Mohamed on a breach of a previous condition of release. That condition apparently stipulated that Mohamed reside at the same address in Montreal. Mohamed took sanctuary inside the Saint-Pierre Church in Quebec City on February 18 in order to avoid an eventual deportation to Algeria. According to lawyers working on the case, Mohamed is currently being transported to Montreal from Quebec City. It is expected that he will be put into detention, or forcibly removed to the United States. Mohamed has been an active member of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians in Montreal. He has resided in Canada for close to seven years, speaks fluent French, and has been a tireless advocate on behalf of non-status refugees in Canada. He has helped hundreds of non-status Algerians gain status in Canada, but he himself has been targeted for removal due to his outspoken advocacy. Mohamed has previously been arrested three times for his participation at sit-ins and pickets. A Solidarity Committee for Mohamed is active in Quebec City. They can be reached at 418-262-0144 or solimo2004 at yahoo.fr The No One Is Illegal Campaign in Montreal can be reached at nooneisillegal at tao.ca or 514-859-9023. PHONE / FAX / EMAIL IMMEDIATELY PHONE / FAX / EMAIL IMMEDIATELY DEMAND THE RELEASE AND LANDING OF MOHAMED CHERFI Below is a letter from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Please read on for details as to how you can act immediately to support Mohamed. More details to follow ... March 5th, 2004 Minister McClellan, Minister Sgro, Minister Courchesne, We demand an immediate intervention on your part in today's vicious arrest of Mohamed Cherfi, who was ripped from his place of sanctuary in Saint-Pierre Church by Quebec Police. We stand by Mohamed and his courageous struggle to win landed status not only on his own behalf but for the sizable community of non-status Algerians living in Montreal who faced deportation, danger, and potential death after the Canadian government lifted a moratorium on deportations to Algeria several years ago. We stand by Mohamed in his fight to stay and live in safety in Canada, a right to which he is entitled. We condemn the Canadian state and their overt targeting of Mohamed as an outspoken and tireless leader in the just struggle against Immigration Canada's detention and deportation machine. Clearly, the police used the guise of intervening on a criminal matter in Mohamed's case, specifically alleging that Mohamed was violating a condition specifying he live in Montreal by seeking safety in a Quebec City Church. This overt operation by state forces sends a clear signal that Immigration Canada and their police lackeys have no qualms about violating church sanctuary - the final place of refuge to which people seeking asylum are forced to turn. The Canadian state is sending a clear message that they will go to extreme lengths to hunt down people fleeing deportation. We condemn this reprehensible tactic and demand immediate release and landing of Mohamed Cherfi. Members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty To all supporters - Please act now to support Mohamed by calling / faxing the Ministers below: Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P. Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness c/o Solicitor General of Canada Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6 Fax: 613-990-9077 Tel: 613-991-2924 E-mail: McClellan.A at parl.gc.ca Judy Sgro, P.C., M.P. Citizenship and Immigration Canada Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1 Fax: 613-947-8319 Tel: 613-992-7774 E-mail: Minister at cic.gc.ca Michelle Courchesne Minister of Quebec Immigration Minist?re des Relations avec les citoyens et de l'Immigration ?difice Marie-Guyart Aile Ren?-L?vesque 1050,Louis-AlexandreTaschereau 3 ?tage Qu?bec (Qu?bec) G1R5E6 Phone: (418) 644-2128 Fax: (418) 528-0829 A Solidarity Committee for Mohamed is active in Quebec City. They can be reached at 418-262-0144 or solimo2004 at yahoo.fr The No One Is Illegal Campaign in Montreal can be reached at nooneisillegal at tao.ca or 514-859-9023. From ron at resist.ca Mon Mar 8 14:47:19 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 14:47:19 -0800 Subject: [news] =?iso-8859-1?q?Ch=E1vez_speaks_at_G_15_=28March_1=29?= Message-ID: <404CF7F7.8010505@resist.ca> http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/docs.php?dno=1011 Speech by President Hugo Chavez, at the Opening of XII G-15 Summit Monday, Mar 01, 2004: ..... In his letter to Jamaica in 1815, Bolivar said, talking about the Panama isthmus and his idea of convening there a Amphictyonic Congress: "I wish one day we would have the opportunity to install there an august congress with the representatives of the Republics, Kingdoms and Empires to debate and discuss the highest interests of Peace and War with the countries of the other three parts of the world." Bolivar reveals himself as an anti-imperialist leader, in the same historic perspective that 140 years after that insightful letter at Kingston materialized in the Bandung Conference in April 1955. Inspired by Nehru, Tito and Nasser, a group of important leaders gathered at this conference to face great challenges and expressed their wish of not being involved in the East-West conflict and rather work together toward national development. This was the first key milestone: the first Afro-Asian conference, the immediate precedent of the Non-Aligned Countries that gathered 29 Heads of State and from which the "Conscience of the South" was born. Two events of great political significance occurred in the 60's: the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961 and the Group of the 77 in 1964: Two milestones and a clear historic trend: the need of the self-awareness of the South and of acting together in a world reality characterized by imbalance and unequal exchange. In the 70's a proposal, arising from the IV Summit of Heads of State of the Non-Aligned Countries in Algiers in 1973, becomes important: the need to create a new international economic order. In 1974 the UN Assembly ratified this proposal, which maintains full effectiveness, but ended up becoming a mere historical reference. Two events that were very important for the struggles in the South occurred during the 80's: the creation of the Commission of the South in Kuala Lumpur in 1987 under the leadership of Julius Nyerere, the unforgettable fighter of Tanzania and the world. Two years later, in September 1989, the Group of the 15 is born within the framework of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Countries, with the purpose of strengthening the South-South cooperation. In 1990, the South-Commission submitted its strategic proposal: "A Challenge for the South". And later on... later on came the Flood with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union; unipolarity appears and the "happy 90's" arrived, as Joseph Stiglitz said. All those struggles, ideas and proposals sunk in the Neo-liberal Flood and the world began to witness the so-called "end of History" and the triumphant chant of the Neo-liberal Globalization, which today, besides an objective reality, is a weapon of manipulation intended to force us to passiveness faced to an Economic World Order that excludes our South countries and condemns them to the never-ending role of producers of wealth and recipients of leftovers. Never before had the world such a tremendous scientific-technical potential, such a capacity to generate wealth and well-being. Authentic technological wonders that have made any place in the world to be always close with regard to distances and communications and have not been capable of bringing well-being for everybody, but only for a meager 15% living in the countries of the North. Globalization has not brought the so-called interdependence, but an increase in dependency. Instead of wealth globalization, there is poverty widely spreading. Development has not become general, or been shared. To the contrary, the abyss between North and South is now so huge, that the unsustainability of the current economic order and the blindness of the people who try to justify continuing to enjoy opulence and waste, are evident. The face of this world economic order of globalization with a neo-liberal sign is not only Internet, virtual reality or the exploration of the space. This face can also be seen, and with a greater dramatic character in the countries of the South, in the 790 millions of people who are starving, 800 millions of illiterate adults, 654 millions of human beings who live today in the south and who will not grow older than 40 years of age. This is the harsh and hard face of the work economic order dominated by the Neoliberalism and seen every year in the south, the death of over 11 millions of boys and girls below 5 years of age caused by illnesses that are practically always preventable and curable and who die at the appalling rate of over 30 thousand every day, 21 every minute, 10 each 30 seconds. In the South, the proportion of children suffering from malnutrition reaches up to 50% in quite a few countries, while according to the FAO, a child who lives in the First World will consume throughout his or her life, the equivalent to what 50 children consume in an underdeveloped country. The great possibilities that a globalization of solidarity and true cooperation could bring to all people in the world through the scientific-technical wonders, has been reduced by the neo-liberal model to this grotesque caricature full of exploitation and social injustice. Our countries of the South were repeated a thousand times that the sole and true "science" capable of ensuring development and well-being for everybody, without exception, was synthesized in leaving the markets operate without regulation, privatizing everything and creating the conditions for transnational capital investment, and banning the State from intervening in the economy. Almost the magic and wonderful philosopher's stone!! Neoliberal thought and politics were created in the North to serve their interests, but it should be highlighted that they have never been truly applied there, but they have been spread throughout the South in the past two decades and reached the disastrous category of a single thought. Through the application of the sole thought, the world economy as a whole grew less than in the three decades between 1945 and 1975, when the Keynesian theories promoting market regulation through State intervention were applied. The gap separating the North and the South continued to grow, not only with regard to economic indicators, but also in the strategic sector of access to knowledge, from which the fundamental possibility of integral development in our times arises. The countries of the North with 15% of the world population count with over 85% of Internet users and control 97% of the patents. These countries have an average of over 10 years of schooling, while in the countries of the South schooling hardly reaches 3.7 years and in many countries is even lower. The tragedy of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, which historic roots lay in colonialism and the slavery of millions of its children, is now reinforced by the neoliberalism from the North. In this region, the rate of infant mortality in children under 1 year of age is 107 per each thousand children born alive, while in the developed countries this rate is 6 per each thousand children born alive; also, life expectancy is 48 years, thirty years less than in countries of the North. In Asia, economic growth in some countries has been remarkable, but the region, as a whole, still presents a delay with regard to the North in basic economic and social development aspects. We are, dear friends, in Latin America, the favorite scenario of the neo-liberal model in the past decades. Here, neoliberalism reached the status of a dogma and was applied with greatest severity. Its catastrophic results can be easily seen and are the explanation for the growing and uncontrollable social protest that the poor people and the excluded people of Latin America have been expressing, every day more vigorously, for some years now, claiming their right to life, to education, to health, to culture, to a decent living as human beings. Dear friends: I saw with my own eyes, a day like today but exactly 15 years ago, the 27 of February 1989, when an intense day of protest broke out on the streets of Caracas against the neo-liberal package of the International Monetary Fund and ended in a real massacre known as "The Caracazo". The neo-liberal model promised Latin Americans greater economic growth, but during the neo-liberal years growth has not even reached half the growth achieved in the 1945-1975 period with different politics. The model recommended the most strict financial liberalization and exchange freedom to achieve a greater influx of foreign capitals and greater stability. But in neo-liberal years the financial crises have been more intense and frequent than ever before, the external regional debts non-existent at the end of the Second World War amounts today to 750 billion dollars, the per capita highest debt in the world and in several countries is equal to more than half the GDP. Only between 1990 and the year 2002, Latin America made external debt payments amounting to 1 trillion 528 billions of dollars, which duplicates the amount of the current debt and represented an annual average payment of 118 billions. That is, we pay the debt every 6.3 years, but this evil burden continues to be there, unchanging and inextinguishable. It is a never-ending debt!! Obviously, this debt has exceeded the normal and reasonable payment commitments by any debtor and has turned into an instrument to undercapitalize our countries additionally to the imposition of socially adverse measures that subsequently generate powerful politically destabilizing factors for the governments that insist in their implementation. We were asked to be ultraliberal in trade and to lift any barrier, which may obstruct the imports coming from the North, but the oral champions of free trade actually are the champions in the practice of protectionism. The North spends 1 billion dollars a day in practicing what has been banned from doing, that is, subsidizing inefficient products. I want to tell you--and this is a true and verifiable data--that each cow grazing in the European Union receives in its four stomachs 2.20 dollars a day in subsidies, thus having a better situation than 2.5 billion poor people in the South who barely survive with an income less than 2 dollars a day. With the FTAA, the government of the United States wants us to reach a zero tariff situation in their benefit and wants us to give away our markets, our oil, our water resources and biodiversity, in addition to our sovereignty, whereas walls of subsidies for agriculture keep access closed to the market of that country. It is a peculiar way of relieving the huge commercial deficit of the United States, to do exactly the contrary to what they present as a sacred principle in economic policy. Neoliberalism promised Latin American people that if they accepted the demands of the multinational capital, investments would overflow the region. Indeed, the incoming capital increased. A portion to buy state-owned companies sometimes at bargain prices, another portion was speculative capital to seize the opportunities involved in the financial liberalization environment. The neo-liberal model promised that after a painful adjustment period necessary to deprive the State of its regulatory power over economy and liberalize trade and finance, wealth would spread over Latin America and the long-lasting history of poverty and underdevelopment would be left behind. But the painful and temporary adjustment became permanent and appears to become everlasting. The results cannot be concealed. Taking 1980 as the conventional year of the commencement of the neo-liberal cycle, by that time around 35 percent of the Latin American population were poor. Two decades thereafter, 44 percent of Latin American men and women are poor. Poverty is particularly cruel to children. It is a sad reality that in Latin America most of the poor people are children and most children are poor. In the late 90s', the Economic Commission for Latin America reported that 58 percent of children under 5 were poor, as well as 57% of children with ages ranging from 6 to 12. Poverty among children and teenagers tends to reinforce and perpetuate inequalities of access to education, as shown by a survey conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank on 15 countries where householders in 10 percent of the population with the highest income had an average schooling of 11 years, whereas among householders in 30 percent of the lowest income population such average was 4 years. Neoliberalism promised wealth. And poverty has spread, thus making of Latin America the most unequal region over the world in terms of income distribution. In the region, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population-- those who are satisfied with neoliberalism and feel enthusiastic about the FTAA--receive nearly 50 percent of the total income, where the poorest 10 percent--those who never appear in high class society chronicles of the oligarchic mass media--barely receive 1.5 percent of such total income. This exploitation model has turned Latin America and the Caribbean into a social bomb ready to explode, should anti-development, unemployment and poverty keep increasing. Even though the social struggles are growing sharp and even some governments have been overthrown by uprisings, we are told by the North that the neo-liberal reform has not yielded good results because it has not been implemented in full. So, they now intend to recommend the formula of suicide. But we know, brothers and sisters, that countries do not commit suicide. The people of our countries awake, stand up and fight! As a conclusion, their Excellencies, because of its injustice and inequality, the economic and social order of neo-liberal globalization appears to be a dead-end street for the South. Therefore, the passive acceptance of the excluding rules imposed by this economic and social order cannot be the behavior to be exercised by the Heads of State and Government who have the highest responsibility before our peoples. The history of our countries does not admit any doubt--passivity and grieving are useless, instead, the joined and firm action is the sole conduct enabling the South to rise from its sad role of exploited and humiliated rearguard. Thanks to the heroic struggle against colonialism, the developing countries broke the economic and social order condemning them to the condition of exploited colonies. Colonialism was not defeated by the accumulations of tears of sorrow or by the repentance of colonialists, but for centuries of heroic fights for independence and sovereignty in which the resistance, tenacity and sacrifice of our peoples worked wonders. Here, in South America, this year we are precisely commemorating 180 years of the heroic deeds of Ayacucho battle, where people joined and became a liberating army after almost 20 years of revolutionary wars under the bright leadership of Jose de San Martin, Bernardo O'Higgins, Jose Inacio Abreu e Lima, Simon Bolivar and Antonio Jose de Sucre, sending away the Spanish empire hitherto extended from the warm Caribbean beaches to the cold lands of Patagonia, thus ending 300 years of colonialism. Today, vis-A-vis the obvious failure of neoliberalism and the great threat that the International Economic Order represents for our countries, it is necessary to retake the Spirit of the South. That is where this Summit in Caracas is heading for. I propose to re-launch the G-15 as a South Integration Movement rather than a group. A movement for the promotion of all possible trends, which walks towards the Non-aligned Movement, the Group of 77, China--The entirely whole South!! I propose that we retake the proposals of the 1990 South Commission: Why not focus our attention and our political actions to the proposals for granting several thousands of the "Grants of the South" per year to students from underdeveloped countries to continue studies in the South; or multiplying cooperation in health to decrease infant mortality, provide basic medical care, fight AIDS and many other actions that would only be possible if we would foster them with the solidarity necessary to ease the dark panorama of life in the South and thus face the expensive and ineffective dependency from the North? Why not create the Debtors Fund as an elemental defense tool to have consultations and coordinate collective action policies, taking into account the full operation of the creditors forum structured by different bodies to protect their interests? Why not advance the system of trade preferences among developing countries that only exists symbolically, whereas the protectionism of the North expels our countries from the markets? Why not promote the compensation trade and investment flows within the South instead of competing in a suicidal fashion among us offering concessions to the multinationals of the North? Why not establish the University of the South? Why not create the Bank of the South? These and other proposals retain their value and await for our political will to become true. But finally, dear friends, I would like to mention in particular a proposal, which, in my opinion, has great significance within this set of proposals: In the South we are victims of the media monopoly of the North, which acts as a power system responsible for disseminating in our countries and planting in the minds of our citizens, information, values and consumption patterns that are basically alien to our realities and that have turned themselves into the most powerful and effective tool of domination. Never is domination more perfect than when the dominated people think like the dominators do. To face and begin to change this reality, I dare to propose the creation of a TV channel that could be seen throughout the world showing information and pictures from the South. This would be the first and fundamental step to crush the media monopoly. In a very shot time this TV channel of the South could broadcast throughout the world our own values, our own roots and tell the people in the world in the words of the great poet Mario Benedetti, a man from the deep South, Uruguay, where the La Plata River opens so much that it looks like a silver sea, and washes my dear Buenos Aires and blueish Montevideo: "THE SOUTH ALSO EXISTS" With its French horn and its Swedish academy, its American sauce and its English wrenches, with all its missiles and its encyclopedias, its star wars and its opulent viciousness, with all its laurels the North commands-- but down here close to the roots is where memory no remembrance omits and there are who undies and who unlives and thus, all together work wonders be it known: the South also exists. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much. From ron at resist.ca Tue Mar 9 09:28:06 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 09:28:06 -0800 Subject: [news] Herring-egg harvest angers B.C. natives Message-ID: <404DFEA6.8000807@resist.ca> Herring-egg harvest angers B.C. natives By MARK HUME Globe and Mail Saturday, February 28, 2004 Vancouver - Each spring, the herring come flooding into sheltered bays along the West Coast to deposit globs of glistening, golden eggs worth about $35-million a year on the Asian market. But this year on British Columbia's central coast, the fleet of commercial herring boats gathering for the harvest may be blockaded by hundreds of angry natives who feel a natural resource is being stripped from their region while communities languish in poverty. "Who knows, maybe this province and country will soon see scenes on national TV of what took place with our brothers from Burnt Church on the East Coast. These stocks mean that much to us. Our way of life is at stake here," said Reg Moody of the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella. Mr. Moody said people are sick and tired of watching commercial boats from outside haul away a fortune in herring eggs each year without benefiting the community, where the unemployment rate is often 90 per cent and up to 70 per cent of the working-age population is on social assistance. "The poverty is bad here. It's real A lot of people who are on social assistance have trouble even getting gas to go fishing [for food]. You get three or four guys pooling up so they can get enough gas to go some place where they can catch a halibut. I see that on a regular basis," said Mr. Moody, who is helping to co-ordinate a protest against the herring boats. "It's hard to just sit here and watch your resources hauled away while there are so many unemployed and so many living below the poverty line." About 30 commercial herring boats from around the West Coast are expected to gather in the Bella Coola region over the next few weeks to await openings by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The central coast fishery is one of five areas where herring are harvested in B.C. The areas open at different times in the spring, depending on when the herring eggs ripen. In the past, up to 100 boats have participated in the fishery. The herring boats have commercial licences, which are expensive, and beyond the means of Heiltsuk fishermen. When the open signal comes, the boats rush in to net thousands of tonnes of the herring, in what is known as a roe fishery. The object is not the fish themselves, but their sacs of rich eggs, or roe, considered a delicacy in Japan. Also waiting for the herring are fishermen who have what is called a spawn-on-kelp (or SOK) fishery, in which fronds of seaweed are strung in spawning areas. In a spawn-on-kelp operation, the herring are allowed to lay their sticky eggs on the seaweed and then swim away. The kelp is hauled out and the eggs are processed for market. The spawn-on-kelp fishery is mostly made up of native fishermen, who hold 36 of 46 licences coast-wide. The Heiltsuk, who have nine licences to harvest spawn on kelp, can trace the practice to before European contact on the West Coast, when egg-covered hemlock branches were collected and traded among tribes. A 1996 Supreme Court of Canada case confirmed the Heiltsuk's traditional right to sell spawn on kelp. But Mr. Moody said the roe-herring fishery, in which the spawning fish must be killed to extract the eggs, is taking too big a share of the catch, depriving the Heiltsuk of opportunities to conduct their harvest. "Our commercial right to harvest SOK within our traditional territory is one of the few economic development options we have." Although we make up 55 per cent of the central coast population, our herring allocation represents approximately 9 per cent of the harvested resource value. The remaining 90 per cent of the allocated herring resources (worth an estimated $155-million since 1996) cct with these brackets - it's the source speaking, not the reporter are exported, without benefit to the Heiltsuk," Mr. Moody said. He said the Heiltsuk have been calling on Fisheries and Oceans Canada to double their spawn-on-kelp quota to 1,043 tonnes from 525 tonnes. That would mean taking an equivalent amount away from the roe-herring boats, which this year on the central coast can catch about 2,000 tonnes. Mr. Moody said that after years of fruitless negotiations, the Heiltsuk and a neighbouring band - with the backing of 15 other tribes coast-wide - have decided to try blocking the commercial fishery. "To protect the future of the central coast region, the Heiltsuk and Kitasoo Xaixas Nations have been instructed by their people not to allow a seine or gillnet sac-roe fishery in their traditional territories for the 2004 season," Mr. Moody said in a statement. The bands have declared that all herring fishing grounds traditionally used by natives on the central coast are closed to the commercial fleet. While that would leave some areas open, key areas, like Spiller Channel, would be "closed.""We have no recourse. The two [First] Nations will take all necessary steps available to them to resolve these issues," Mr. Moody said.He would not to say exactly what type of action is being planned, but said 200 to 300 native protesters would probably be involved. Gord McEachen, Fisheries and Oceans chief of conservation management for the central coast, said the government hopes a confrontation can be avoided. If there is a protest, he said the government will see that commercial boats can fish. He didn't want to speculate on what native protesters might do, or how the department might respond. "They plan to do something on the grounds ... [but] I'm not sure how you blockade ..... when you're in the open ocean," he said. "We've met with the Heiltsuk repeatedly. .. We're still in discussion with them ... we'll see if it can be averted or not." Ed Safarik, president of Ocean Fisheries Ltd., said the confrontation boils down to a tough question of sharing a limited resource. He said he doesn't doubt the Heiltsuk have pressing economic needs, but so do others. "All the users of that resource need the money. ..... It's a tough business right now," he said. Mr. Safarik said Fisheries and Oceans is doing the best it can under difficult circumstances. The situation appears to be coming to a head. A statement being prepared for release by the Heiltsuk and Kitasoo says about 200 kilometres of coastline will be declared "no-fish zones for the commercial herring sac-roe fishery for 2004." From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 10 10:44:48 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 10:44:48 -0800 Subject: [news] US sets 'terrible example' in Afghanistan Message-ID: <404F6220.8040907@resist.ca> US sets 'terrible example' in Afghanistan by Jim Lobe US forces in Afghanistan are arbitrarily detaining civilians, using excessive, sometimes lethal force in arresting them, mistreating detainees in ways that may meet international definitions of torture, and administering a system of arrest and detention that is outside the rule of law, according to a blistering new report released Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The 59-page report, "'Enduring Freedom: Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan,'" http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/08/afghan8073.htm charges that mistreatment of detainees appears to be routine in a number of U.S.-controlled detention facilities around Afghanistan, and that the detention system itself resembles "a legal black hole" about which almost nothing is known apart from what former prisoners say about it once they are released. "The United States is setting a terrible example in Afghanistan on detention practices," said Brad Adams, executive director of HRW's Asia division. "Civilians are being held in a legal black hole ? with no tribunals, no legal counsel, no family visits and no basic legal protections." Indeed, the record to date is likely to give ammunition to more abusive governments, particularly in South Asia and the Middle East, where the Bush administration insists it wants to promote human rights and the rule of law. "Abusive governments across the world can now point to US forces in Afghanistan, and say, 'If they can abuse human rights and get away with it, why can't we?'" noted Adams. The report was released amid continuing international criticism of Washington's treatment of the more than 600 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Bush administration has asserted its right to hold them indefinitely and refused to grant them prisoner-of-war (POW) status that would give them the right to appeal their detention in an independent court. Washington has also been criticized for "rendering" some al Qaeda suspects to their home countries' intelligence agencies known to practice torture for interrogation. Its release also coincides with reports of plans for a major escalation of US military operations against Taliban forces and their allies along the Pakistani border later this spring, in part to improve security in advance of elections scheduled for this summer. The report is based on research conducted in southeast and eastern Afghanistan in 2003 and early 2004, including interviews of former prisoners (some of whom were detained both in Afghanistan and at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba), US, UN, and relief officials and military officers, and published reports. It stresses that the armed foes of the US and its allies, including the Taliban, Hezb-e Islami, and a relatively small number of non-Afghan fighters have shown little or no regard for international human rights standards or the laws of war. They have carried out abductions and attacks against civilians and humanitarian aid workers and bombings in bazaars and other civilian areas. HRW agrees that those responsible for these acts should be brought to justice. At the same time, however, the report insists that these activities do not excuse violations of international human rights law, notably the Geneva Conventions, by the US. "Abuses by one party to a conflict, no matter how egregious, do not justify violations by the other side," according to the report. The report covers three kinds of abuses committed by US forces: their use of excessive force in apprehending suspects; arbitrary arrests and indefinite detention; and mistreatment in detention. Over the last two years at least 1,000 Afghans and other nationals are believed to have been arrested and detained by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. While some were apprehended while they were engaged in military operations, most have been taken into custody with no apparent connection to ongoing hostilities, according to the report. It found that US forces regularly use military means and methods ? such as firing from helicopter gunships or using suppressing fire (firing to immobilize possible enemy forces) from small and heavy arms ? during arrest operations in residential areas where police tactics would be more appropriate. The use of these tactics has resulted in unnecessary civilian casualties, and in some cases may have been so indiscriminate and disproportionate as to violate international humanitarian law, according to the report. One of the most damaging cases took place just last December when US forces bombed a house belonging to a tribal leader they believed to be associated with Hezb-e Islami. The intended target, however, was not there, and explosions set off by the bombing killed eight people, including six children, in a nearby home. The report also documents abuses committed by Afghan soldiers or militias deployed alongside US forces, including beatings of detainees and their families, lootings of their homes, and even seizures of their land. The report notes that while the Afghan government is responsible for these abuses, they should also be of concern to the US because they were committed during operations controlled by the US military. Once taken into custody, individuals are detained for indefinite periods at U.S. or U.S.-controlled military bases or outposts. Except for occasional visits to some of these bases by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the detainees ? many of whom were simply picked up for being in the vicinity of US military operations ? are essentially held incommunicado, with no way to contact relatives and no opportunity to challenge the basis of their detentions. In the report's words, they find themselves in a "hopeless situation." Interviews with former detainees suggest that many have been subjected to mistreatment, ranging from beatings, sometimes quite severe, to dousing with cold water or exposing them to freezing temperatures, to sleep deprivation, to forcing them to sit or kneel in painful positions for extended periods of time, a "stress and duress" technique that has been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture. "There is compelling evidence suggesting that US personnel have committed acts against detainees amounting to torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment," said Adams. Indeed, the fact that the Pentagon has still not explained adequately the circumstances of the deaths of two Afghan detainees at Bagram airbase in December ? both were ruled homicides by US military doctors who performed autopsies ? and a similar case in June 2003 at a detention site in Kunar province bolsters the notion that the US military is operating its detention facilities in Afghanistan "in a climate of almost total impunity," according to the report. "Simply put, the United States is acting outside the rule of law," the report states. "There are no judicial processes restraining their actions in arresting persons in Afghanistan. The only real legal limits on their activities are self-imposed..." Nor is the US military the only likely offender. In addition to the Afghan Army, which is also accused of committing serious abuses against its detainees, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is known to hold detainees both at Bagram and other locations in Afghanistan, including in Kabul. Even less is known about its practices, according to the report. It noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has complained to US authorities about abuses by US troops, including their use of excessive force in arrest operations and its treatment of suspects in detention, on a number of occasions. But "the Afghan government and the Afghan Ministry of Defense have limited influence over US military strategies and policies..." the report asserted. The ultimate result is a serious loss of credibility for US criticisms of abusive practices committed by Afghan forces and foreign governments, according to HRW. "It is now all too easy for governments to justify their failures to uphold human rights by pointing to US violations in Afghanistan." From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 01:22:55 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 09:22:55 -0000 Subject: [news] RCMP rejects report findings of "excessive force" against protesters Message-ID: <20040315092255.2832.qmail@resist.ca> SUE BAILEY OTTAWA (CP) - RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli should be fired for flouting key parts of a Mountie watchdog report that found excessive force was used at the 2001 Summit of the Americas, says New Democrat MP Svend Robinson. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/11/103132/273 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 01:22:55 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 09:22:55 -0000 Subject: [news] Health unions seek strike mandate Message-ID: <20040315092255.2841.qmail@resist.ca> @ http://www.workingtv.com/mainp11.html Webcast of the March 07, 2004 Hospital Employees Union announcement that HEU and other unions representing 43,000 British Columbia health care workers are seeking a strike mandate. This is in response to employer demands for massive concessions and because employers have issued over 2500 pink slips to health care workers since negotiations began January 9. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/10/102110/296 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 01:22:55 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 09:22:55 -0000 Subject: [news] 'Thousands evicted' for Olympics Message-ID: <20040315092255.2833.qmail@resist.ca> http://www.guardian.co.uk China had evicted 300,000 people from their homes in Beijing to prepare for the 2008 summer Olympics, the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (Cohre) said yesterday. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/11/103828/996 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 01:22:55 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 09:22:55 -0000 Subject: [news] A Case to halt the Sale of BC Rail - BC Fed Message-ID: <20040315092256.2838.qmail@resist.ca> News that a $1 billion sale of a Crown Corporation is the subject of a criminal investigation would cause any responsible government to re-evaluate its decision to proceed with the deal - and then there are the BC Liberals. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/10/103748/075 From skisby at web.net Mon Mar 15 15:06:01 2004 From: skisby at web.net (Steve Kisby) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:06:01 -0800 Subject: [news] Group Forms to Prevent A New Error In Vancouver Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20040315150601.014ce080@pop.web.net> http://www.alternatives.com/prorep/fvv-0315.pdf Media Release For Immediate Release Group Forms to Prevent A New Error In Vancouver VANCOUVER -- March 15, 2004 -- Today, local Vancouver democracy advocates announced a campaign to alert Vancouver city voters that a full wards system proposed for the city is the same flawed system we now have provincially and federally. It is widely acknowledged that the full wards system suffers from unbalanced -- and sometimes wildly unbalanced -- election results, a sense of wasted votes, and vote splitting when more than two parties or candidates run. Full ward systems also experience lower voter turnout and more non-participation when compared to other voting systems that incorporate proportionality or preferential voting. To address these problems at the provincial level a Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform has been called to examine other systems and make a recommendation to the voting public. "Political leaders now in control at City Hall have set their sights on a full wards system for Vancouver, and are just going through the motions to implement that system," said Steve Kisby, a spokesperson for the group. "If implemented, we'll be stuck with that flawed system for years," continued Kisby. "There is widespread interest and a great deal of public support for a more proportional municipal voting system, but changing from at large voting to full wards just replaces one unjust system with another", continued local Fair Vote Canada President Stephen Broscoe. "I don't see why that would be satisfactory to the voting public when fairer alternatives are available." A full wards system is a system where City Council would comprise exclusively of councillors elected from single member wards using first-past-the-post voting. The Berger Commission (the Vancouver Electoral Reform Commission) has been established to make recommendations on the City's electoral system. At the January 21, 2004, forum held at SFU's Harbour Centre Campus, its leading advisors/researchers argued for the full ward system "because it can be done now." They believe that such a change may be implemented without a change to the Vancouver Charter, however any change still needs provincial approval through an Order In Council. "We call upon the Berger Commission to recommend to voters the best system, not just one they say can be done now," said Kisby, "To do otherwise would be short sighted." Fair Vote Vancouver is made up of voters who came together in response to Vancouver's Electoral Reform Commission. They believe a voting system should be measured on these four principles: Proportionality (where there should be a close correspondence between the percentage of votes a party or political affiliation wins and the percentage of seats it wins), Voter Choice (where comparatively you want a voting system that is better at presenting the choices that voters want, and encourages voters to vote sincerely, rather than strategically), Local Representation (where all regions in Vancouver should be fairly represented in City Council), and Every Vote Counts (where the voting system should accord equal weight to all ballots cast and should minimize the wastage of votes). A proportional wards system would meet the above principles. The group's web site can be found at http://www.alternatives.com/prorep and can be contacted at fvv at alternatives.com . The local Fair Vote Canada chapter supports the Fair Vote Vancouver campaign. -30- For more information: Steve Kisby, 604-323-0204, skisby at web.net Stephen Broscoe, 604-939-8776 (home), 604-233-5031 (work), sbroscoe at telus.net Backgrounder ? What's wrong with a full ward system? A full ward system is a first-past-the-post single member electoral district system. Implementing the full ward system at the local level in Vancouver would be implementing the same faulty system that is now used at the provincial and federal levels. It is widely acknowledged that the provincial system and federal system of first-past-the-post single member electoral districts or "wards" is a flawed system, so much so that, provincially in B.C., a Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform has been called to examine other systems and make a recommendation to the voting public. First-past-the-post single member ward systems are winner take all systems that suffer from unbalanced -- and sometimes wildly unbalanced -- election results, a sense of wasted votes, and "vote splitting" where there are more than two parties or candidates. This type of system experiences lower voter turnout and more non-participation when compared to other voting systems that incorporate proportionality or preferential voting. ? COPE strategists and Berger Commission advisors/researchers are saying that a proportional system with wards would be better but we can't do it now. They say it's better to implement the full ward system as a step towards a better system in the future. Implementing the flawed full ward system now would mean that voters in Vancouver would be stuck with that system for decades. Only when pressed do COPE strategists and Berger Commission advisors/researchers say that it's a 'step towards' a better system. ? Why is the Berger Commission saying City Council can only do some changes now, and need provincial approval for other changes? Berger Commission advisors/researchers have examined the Vancouver Charter and in their opinion the City has the legal authority to change the existing "at large" system to only a full ward system or a "mixed system" without a change to the Vancouver Charter. In the Commission's opinion, to implement other systems or reforms, such as a proportional system with wards or implementing spending reforms, requires a change to the Vancouver Charter which would need to be done by the Provincial government. Either way, any change requires provincial government approval through an Order In Council. ? The Berger Commission is saying that only the at large, wards, or mixed system (of at large and wards) are the main systems under consideration because of the limitations of the Vancouver Charter or because those are the only systems that have been supported by former mayors. City Council has asked the Commission to report to Council on "other reforms for the improvement of civic democracy that would require amendments to the Vancouver Charter or other statutes in order to be implemented" and to "report to Council on the merits of the current at-large system, the ward system and other alternative systems." The Berger Commission has said that it "intends to make recommendations divided into two parts: What can the Council do on its own, and what will require provincial legislation." It is fully within the mandate of the Commission to consider a proportional system or a proportional wards system. Further, within the commission's educational mandate we feel that the commission has an obligation to fairly present a proportional or a proportional wards system on par with the other three systems the Commission has presented. ? In 1996 there was a referendum on electoral reform in Vancouver. The referendum question was initially to be a choice between the existing "at large" system and a full ward system. Due to public pressure, that choice was expanded to two questions. The first was "are you in favour of keeping the existing system of election councillors" with the second being, if the existing system was to change, would you prefer a mixed system, proportional system, ward system, or other system. In that 1996 referendum, 59.43% of Vancouver voters indicated they would like to keep the existing system of electing councillors "at large" whereby all voters can vote for all councillors. ? In the 1999 Vancouver election, COPE supported a proportional ward system. In the November 2002 election COPE dropped proportional and only promoted a full ward system. -end- From ron at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 15:40:06 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:40:06 -0800 Subject: [news] Colombia: Soldiers say they will kill, not capture union leaders Message-ID: <40563ED6.2060905@resist.ca> Leaders from a peasant organisation in Colombia's northeastern department of Arauca is threatened by the Army's Mobile Brigade Number 5. A lawyer defending jailed trade union leader Luz Perly C?rdoba, is also receiving death threats. Amnesty International fear for his safety. 14.03.2004 (By Amnesty International) Members of the Asociaci?n Campesina de Arauca (ACA), Arauca Peasant Association Human rights lawyer Rodolfo R?os Lozano has reportedly received death threats accusing him of links with left-wing guerrillas. Other human rights lawyers threatened in this way by the armed forces or their paramilitary allies have been killed, and Amnesty International is seriously concerned for his safety. A recent telephone death threat accused him of being a "FARC terrorist dog, lawyer who defends narcoterrorists" (Perro terrorista de las FARC, abogado defensor de narcoterroristas). The FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is a guerrilla organisation that has been fighting the Colombian government since the 1960s. During a separate telephone call he was told that he had to choose between leaving the country, dropping the cases he was working on, or being killed. Over the last few days the death threats have become more frequent. The callers have not identified themselves. He has also reportedly been kept under surveillance and followed by unidentified men who have been loitering around his home and his office. The threats follow the release of several people he was defending, and who had reportedly been detained in a number of mass arrests around the country during military-coordinated operations with the Office of the Attorney General. Over the past year Amnesty International has documented a number of mass arrests of people accused of "subversive" activities, including human rights defenders, peasant leaders and trade unionists. Frequently the arrests are made on the basis of spurious allegations by the armed forces and paid or military informers. Many of those arrested in these operations have later been released. Rodolfo R?os is representing Luz Perly C?rdoba, president of the Asociaci?n Campesina de Arauca (ACA), Arauca Peasant Association. Luz Perly was detained in Bogot? on 18 Febuary and has been accused of being linked to guerrilla activities. She was apparently detained on the basis of evidence from informers, not serious and impartial judicial investigations. ACA treasurer Jes?s Guti?rrez was detained in Arauquita the same day. Over the last year members of the ACA in Arauca department have reportedly been threatened, harassed and beaten by members of the armed forces who have repeatedly accused the ACA of being a "subversive" organization. The ACA has played a role in exposing the human rights crisis in Arauca Department including human rights violations in which the armed forces are implicated. Criticising the armed forces in this way puts them in grave danger. On 21 February troops of the Army's Mobile Brigade Number 5 reportedly entered the area of Botal?n in the municipality of Tame, Arauca Department, where ACA leaders Marina Navarro and Daniel Botello live. The soldiers apparently had orders to detain Navarro and Botello, but according to witnesses, soldiers operating near Botal?n said that the two leaders would not be captured but would be killed. Amnesty International is seriously concerned for the safety of these two activists. The following day, soldiers from the same mobile Brigade reportedly entered the nearby hamlet of Betoyes wearing paramilitary uniforms, and threatened the inhabitants. From ron at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 16:06:02 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 16:06:02 -0800 Subject: [news] Transportation Union Chief Admits to Racketeering Message-ID: <405644EA.8060900@resist.ca> Transportation Union Chief Admits to Racketeering Fri Mar 12, 4:21 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters HOUSTON (Reuters) - The president of the United Transportation Union (news - web sites) pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy on Thursday, admitting that he solicited bribes from lawyers trying to get access to lucrative legal work for rail workers. Byron Boyd, 57, pleaded guilty during a brief hearing before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake in Houston, becoming the fourth and final defendant to admit his guilt in a scheme that ran back as far as 1995. The four men, all former union officials, solicited cash from lawyers who wished to represent injured rail workers in personal injury lawsuits against rail employers. Those are potentially very lucrative suits since there is no limit to legal damages under federal law. "These gentlemen used their official positions to basically extort money from lawyers who wanted to do business with the union. They would shake down those lawyers," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Michael Shelby told reporters. The 125,000-member union, based in Cleveland, and with offices in Ottawa and Washington, is North America's largest for rail operating workers but also has members from the bus, mass transit and airline industries. Boyd admitted using his position to solicit and collect cash payments from lawyers, and admitted directing other union officials to do the same. "What I have pleaded to is a burden that falls squarely on my shoulders, as it should. To all I am truly sorry for the anguish I have put you through," Boyd said in a statement released on the union's Web Site after his plea. Three other union officials -- former Boyd special assistant John Rookard, 58; former president Charles Little, 66; and former insurance director Ralph Dennis, 52; have already pleaded guilty. The four each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Little and Boyd each agreed to forfeit $100,000 in proceeds from the scheme, while Rookard and Dennis agreed to surrender $45,000 apiece. The men got at least $477,000 in cash in the alleged scheme dating back to 1995, prosecutors have said. The charges were brought in Houston because five lawyers who were shaken down came from Houston, Shelby said. From ron at resist.ca Mon Mar 15 16:20:07 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 16:20:07 -0800 Subject: [news] Union rep "removed" after condemning RAV Message-ID: <40564837.50507@resist.ca> http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=1339 Georgia Straight 11 March 2004 Straight Talk Union rep "removed" after condemning RAV By Charlie Smith A union representative has claimed that the Canadian Auto Workers "removed" him as a spokesperson after he refused to endorse the B.C. Federation of Labour's position on TransLink's three-year strategy and 10-year outlook. Bus driver Jim Houlahan told the Straight that he was instructed last year to write and present CAW Local 111's views at a December 9 TransLink meeting. For the past several years, Houlahan has spoken on behalf of his union at various city council and TransLink meetings. Houlahan, a former union president, said that his local had previously opposed the $1.5-billion-to-$1.7-billion RAV project because it was a huge expenditure of public money that would do very little to reduce congestion. "This line is not a good investment," Houlahan said. "It's not good for bus riders and for my local." However, he said, the B.C. Federation of Labour had already decided it would support TransLink's three-year strategy and 10-year outlook, which included $370-million for the RAV project. "When I recognized...that I couldn't say what was necessary to represent my local's interest without running into a contradiction or conflict with the Fed position--and made them [CAW] aware of this problem--I was removed as speaker," Houlahan said. B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair and CAW national director Anne Davidson did not return calls from the Straight by deadline. A February 26 B.C. Federation of Labour news release urged Greater Vancouver Regional District directors to support TransLink's plan, which passed by a single vote the next day. Sinclair claimed in the release that if the plan wasn't approved, "those who depend on public transit will suffer the most." Houlahan made several public presentations last year stating that the RAV project will not come close to achieving its targeted ridership of 100,000 per day. He has argued that this will result in huge public subsidies, leading to funding cuts to the bus system that will harm transit users. CAW Local 111 president Don MacLeod gave the presentation to the TransLink board supporting the overall plan but criticizing the number of new buses. MacLeod told the Straight that his union's political-action committee, which included Houlahan, endorsed the B.C. Federation of Labour's position. "I still have the same concerns about RAV that we raised initially," he said. However, MacLeod claimed that TransLink would have cut bus-service hours next September if the three-year plan wasn't approved. Andy Ross, a vice-president of the Office and Professional Employees' International Union Local 378, told the Straight that his union also publicly opposed the RAV project last year before the TransLink board. Ross, who also chaired the B.C. Federation of Labour transportation committee, said that if GVRD directors didn't approve the funding in the three-year transportation plan, TransLink would have cut bus operations and bought fewer new buses. "Our concern was if the plan went down, we don't believe that would kill RAV," Ross said. OPEIU Local 378 and CAW Local 111 each ratified contracts with TransLink or its subsidiaries calling for an eight- percent wage increase over three years. CUPE 7000, which represents SkyTrain workers, received a slightly larger increase. Ross said there was no agreement with TransLink to support the three-year plan in return for wage hikes. The 10-year outlook proposes increasing the bus fleet from 1,200 to 1,600 by 2013. A previous TransLink plan, which was cancelled with the defeat of the vehicle levy, proposed increasing the bus fleet to 1,800 by 2006. Houlahan criticized labour leaders for putting pressure on Coalition of Progressive Electors councillors Fred Bass, Tim Louis, and Anne Roberts. They opposed the three-year strategy and 10-year outlook for undermining transit service. "Those people were hung out to dry, and that pisses me off," Houlahan said. "Hats off to them for standing strong to that pressure." TransLink announced last October that it would buy 228 trolley buses from Winnipeg-based New Flyer Industries Ltd., which has workers represented by the Canadian Auto Workers. Less than two months after TransLink approved the purchase, New Flyer's controlling shareholder, U.S.based KPS Special Situations Fund, announced the sale of New Flyer to U.S.based Harvest Partners. KPS states on its Web site (www.kpsfund.com/) that it has worked "constructively" with major industrial and service unions in the United States and Canada, sponsoring many transactions in partnership with unions. From resist at resist.ca Tue Mar 16 15:35:24 2004 From: resist at resist.ca (resist at resist.ca) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 15:35:24 -0800 Subject: [news] Release: Assault on Six Women and Two Men Dismissed by the VPD Without Inquiry Message-ID: <20040316233524.GB12102@resist.ca> March 16, 2004 For Immediate release ASSAULT ON SIX WOMEN AND TWO MEN DISMISSED BY VPD WITHOUT INQUIRY At a press briefing this morning, the Vancouver Police Department continued their assault on 8 Eastside residents who were viciously beaten by VPD officers February 29th while returning home in the early morning hours. Producing 911 tapes and a pair of boots as "evidence", the VPD stepped forward to claim officers innocent of any wrongdoing in the incident, without pursuing any formal process or inquiry. The eight people who were assaulted by the police February 29th stand by statements of injury and innocence they have made in the public and to the media, and maintain that this is not an isolated incident of police brutality. Community outcry for police department accountability and inquiries into events involving excessive force used by police officers has been a feature of the poor relationship between the VPD and the Vancouver public over the past few years. Community members were upset today that the VPD held a briefing to maintain no wrongdoing in this event before any trial, inquiry, or interviews with eye-witnesses to the event could take place. This appears to be a move to intimidate people challenging police actions, and puts any future trial or inquiry in jeopardy. Although the VPD released some of the 911 tapes from that evening today, they did not release the 911 call made by an eyewitness who phoned to get emergency medical attention to the scene. Further to this, the VPD failed to mention during its briefing this morning that one of the officers involved in the February 29th incident is currently under investigation by the Police Commissioner for using excessive force at a cancelled Guns and Roses concert last year. PIVOT Legal and other local and international organizations have conducted wide ranging studies over the past 2 years indicating that negligence, the use of excessive force, and human rights abuses are all part of standard operating procedure in the Vancouver Police Department. This latest campaign to smear legitimate complainants of police violence is just one more example of a force sadly out of touch with the citizens of Vancouver. The original news release from the February 29th, 2004 incident can be found at http://resist.ca/~vpdbrutality. Reports detailing VPD abuses by PIVOT, PACE (Prostitution Alternatives and Counseling), and Human Rights Watch can be downloaded at http://www.pivotlegal.org/complaint/index.html. -30- Media Contact: Kathleen Yearwood 780 636 2141 voiceoftheturtle at angelfire.com From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 11:12:23 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:12:23 -0800 Subject: [news] Korean Labour News - March 2004 Message-ID: <4058A317.7020506@resist.ca> Migrant Workers are Also Workers! Mobilize Protests Against the South Korean Government??s Manhunt and Repression of Migrant Workers! Since March 9, seven migrant workers have been on a hunger strike in immigration detention centers in Hwasung and Yesoo and at Myeongdong Cathedral. The conditions of these deportation centers are even worse than South Korean prisons. These workers have basically put their lives "on the line" for migrant rights in South Korea. On July 31st 2003, the South Korean government passed a new migrant worker management system, entitled, the Act on Employment of Foreign Labourers or otherwise known as the Employment Permit System (EPS). This law is to take into effect on August 2004. This new law along with the Industrial Trainee System is basically South Korean's version of a slave system. To migrant workers, the EPS is a law that allows slavery. According to the new law, migrant workers can work in South Korea for only three years and for only one employer. Since migrant workers cannot change their work place, the employer basically has complete control over the wages and working conditions of migrant workers; thus these workers are bound to the employer like slaves. In preparation for the implementation of the EPS, since November 16, 2003, the South Korean government has been consistent in their policy of seeking out and deporting migrant workers who have been in South Korea for more than four years. This policy has resulted in the tragic deaths of nine migrant workers who chose death instead of returning to their home country. From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 11:25:03 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:25:03 -0800 Subject: [news] Spaniards oust ruling party in wake of terrorist attacks Message-ID: <4058A60F.8060807@resist.ca> Globe and Mail March 15, 2004 - Page A1 Spaniards oust ruling party in wake of terrorist attacks Widespread belief of lying by government prompts angry voters to turn to Socialists By Alan Freeman Madrid -- Angry Spanish voters, traumatized by Thursday's terrorist attacks in Madrid, threw out the governing party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in the national election yesterday, dealing a new blow to the U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq. The Socialist opposition, which only days ago was widely expected to lose the election, roared to victory over the governing Popular Party. The Socialists captured 164 seats in the 350-seat lower assembly, while the governing party won 148. The dramatic reversal was tied to the widespread belief that the government had tried to manipulate public opinion in the wake of Thursday's bombings at Madrid railway stations, which killed 200 and injured close to 1,500. Mr. Aznar and his ministers were quick to lay blame for the attack on the militant Basque separatist group ETA, despite the suspicions of many that the bombings were the work of al-Qaeda, or a related group, in response to Spain's support of the Iraq war. The announcement over the weekend that police had arrested three Moroccans and two Indian citizens in connection with the train attacks, and the discovery of a videotape by a purported al-Qaeda spokesman claiming responsibility for the attacks, persuaded many voters they had been lied to. "They didn't tell us the truth about the attacks. They didn't say everything they knew," said Clemente Torres, a 41-year-old graphic designer, who said he voted for the first time yesterday to punish the government for its handling of the bombings. "They tried to manipulate us by lying." Mr. Torres said he does not believe ETA was responsible for the attacks. "I think it was al-Qaeda, taking revenge on Spain for supporting the war in Iraq." It was a humiliating result for Mr. Aznar, who had planned an elegant retirement from politics after two terms in office and a seamless handover to his lacklustre successor, Mariano Rajoy. The election will also weaken the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq because Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the 43-year-old Socialist leader who now becomes prime minister, has vowed to withdraw Spain's 1,300 soldiers from Iraq by June 30 unless the United Nations is running the country by then. Opinion polls showed as many as 90 per cent of Spaniards opposed the war, in which 11 Spaniards have died. Mr. Aznar's high-profile support of U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in invading Iraq was widely opposed by Spanish voters, and that anti-war sentiment is also believed to have contributed to his party's defeat. "No to the War," chanted hundreds of jubilant Socialist supporters outside the party's headquarters in downtown Madrid last night. The Spanish vote marks the first time a government that supported the war in Iraq has been thrown out of office and will deliver a sobering message to Mr. Bush, who faces re-election in November, and to Mr. Blair, who is being subjected to increasingly harsh criticism over his handling of the war. In his victory speech, Mr. Zapatero, a lawyer who has led the Socialists for three years, promised to make the fight against terrorism his top priority. He called the win a victory for democracy over fear. "My most immediate priority is to beat all forms of terrorism," Mr. Zapatero said, asking for a minute's silence in honour of those who were killed and injured in the bombings on four packed commuter trains. With 99 per cent of the votes counted, official results showed the Socialists with 43 per cent of the vote, compared with 38 per cent for the PP. Winning 164 seats leaves the Socialists short of an absolute majority of 176, meaning they will probably need help from another party to form a government. Turnout was high, at 76 per cent of the country's 34 million voters. Mr. Zapatero inherits a country that is deeply divided and confused over who is to blame for Thursday's unprecedented attacks. He is expected to pull Spain back from its close alliance with the United States and align it more closely with the European Union on foreign affairs and the war in Iraq. Some supporters of the Socialist party had trouble believing they had won. "It's a surprise for me and for my friends," said Francisco de Castro, a 28-year-old student. He said the government's handling of the bombing's aftermath had proven they were liars. "I believe that they manipulate information." "This is a punishment for the Popular Party and for Mr. Aznar and Mr. Rajoy got caught in the middle," said Eduardo Nolla, a political scientist at Madrid San Pablo University. He said the government should have delayed the election after the bombings. "Could you imagine an election in the U.S. on Sept. 14?" Mr. Nolla said, drawing a parallel between the mood of Spaniards after the train bombings and that of Americans after the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. He called yesterday's election "an exceptional situation with an exceptional result." But Gerardo Galeote, who represents the Popular Party in the European Parliament, said that it would have been a mistake to delay the elections. "We shouldn't adapt our calendar to suit the terrorists. This is a free election and we have our free elections." Late Saturday night, the Interior Ministry announced that five men were being held on suspicion of involvement in the sale and falsification of a cellphone found in an unexploded bomb in a backpack on one of the trains. Yesterday, officials were examining videotape, discovered in a garbage can near a Madrid mosque on Saturday, in which a man speaking Arabic says the al-Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the attack. The man, who said he was speaking for Abu Dujan al-Afghani, who he said is the military spokesman of al-Qaeda in Europe, referred to Iraq and Afghanistan, where Spanish troops are deployed. "If you don't stop your injustices, more blood will flow and these attacks are very small compared with what may happen with what you call terrorism," he said, according to a transcript in Spanish from the Interior Ministry. The tape was not released. Yesterday, a Basque-language daily published a statement by ETA in which the group, for the second time, denied involvement in the attacks. http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040315/SPAINV1 5/International/Idx From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 11:46:03 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:46:03 -0800 Subject: [news] Police lied about Stonechild, inquiry hears Message-ID: <4058AAFB.9000906@resist.ca> Police lied about Stonechild, inquiry hears Web Posted | Mar 12 2004 08:01 AM CST http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=stonechild040312 REGINA - The inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild heard evidence that police deliberately misled the public about the mysterious death of an Aboriginal teen more than 13 years ago. The issue of how Saskatoon police handled the fallout from the Stonechild investigation and the subsequent public inquiry dominated hearings this week. The most striking testimony came Thursday when deputy police chief Dan Wiks admitted that he misled the public last May when asked whether two officers were suspects in the RCMP investigation. Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations lawyer Sy Halyk was cross examining Wiks when he admitted lying to the media. "What you said to the press in May 2003 to Mr. [James] Parker was an absolute untruth and misstatement?" he asked Wiks. "uh...it was a misstatement, yes," Wiks responded. The deputy chief also admitted that in preparing for the inquiry, a Saskatoon police task force discussed putting the two suspected constables, Larry Hartwig and Brad Senger, on paid suspension and then lying to the public about by saying the officers had been reassigned. Wiks says that police misled the public within a year of Stonechild's death. Then media liaison Dave Scott told the press that the investigation had been exhaustive. The former police chief now admits that the investigation was at best, shoddy. Senger and Hartwig are expected to testify at the inquiry next week. From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 11:55:19 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:55:19 -0800 Subject: [news] Campbell plans to sell MSP & Pharmacare to US Message-ID: <4058AD27.1040108@resist.ca> The following information was placed in an ad in Times Colonist (March 6, 2004) by the BCGEU. If you feel strongly about this issue, read further and then sign the petition. "The Gordon Campbell Liberals plan to sell off the Medical Services Plan and PharmaCare to either IBM or Maximus - both "American" multi-national corporations - by August 31. The government will give an American-owned corporation access to private records on every British Columbian. This includes health treatment, pharmacy, income tax, mental health and criminal records, as well as records from the ministries of Children and Family Development and Human Resources. A New York expert on the new USA Patriot Act says this could even give the FBI access to our private medical record. The Patriot Act allows the FBI to demand corporations secretly hand over medical records and other personal information of innocent people. And legal precedents suggest even if the information is held by a Canadian subsidiary, the American parent company could be required to hand it over. Our personal medical information should not be made available to private corporations that don't answer to our privacy laws. It should remain in the care of public employees who are bound by an oath of office to keep it confidential. To sign the petition, go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/publicpc/ To read more about BCGEU concerns & the court challenge regarding privatization, then go to: http://www.nupge.ca/news_2004/n25fe04a.htm From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 14:20:07 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:20:07 -0800 Subject: [news] HAC protests police brutality Message-ID: <4058CF17.30303@resist.ca> March 15 is the International Day Against Police Brutality. Across the world people take to the streets to denounce escalating police repression, the Housing Action Committee did the same through the streets of the Down Town East Side (DTES). We marched through the streets in silence to pay our respect to our sisters and brothers who have been killed by the police or who are incarcerated due to unjust laws. Three letters where delivered to three organizations that we feel are most responsible for the ongoing violence and harassment in our neighborhood. The first letter was left at the Vancouver Police Departments (VPD) station in the DTES. In the letter we demanded immediate respect and an end to brutality. By brutality we mean not only the savage beatings that we endure in the back alleys but also the day-to-day persecution we are subjected to on the streets. Constant jack-ups, ticketing, name running and so on constitute the daily experience for many. We know the police are not solely responsible for brutality, the orders and money comes from people in positions of power who are never held accountable. Because of this we marched to an office that liaisons with the Vancouver Agreement (VA). The VA is a deal that has allotted 30 million to be invested into the DTES. We the residents have yet to receive any benefits from this money. In fact a large sum of money has been set aside to fund the VPDs failed City Wide Enforcement Initiative. The crusade also known as 'operation torpedo' has only perpetuated the suffering in the DTES. City hall knows this, that's why the VPD is going, hat in hand, to beg for money from the VA so that they can keep their extra cops and continue their displacement campaign. We demand not one cent be given to the police from the money meant for our community. The last letter we delivered was to the Business Improvement Association (BIA). The BIA with the Vancouver Board of Trade, Tourism Vancouver, and 25 other Businesses associations have created a 'Safe Streets Coalition". The coalition is using their purchased lobbying power to push for the BC equivalent of Ontario's safe street act (OSSA). Implemented in 2000 the OSSA has been instrumental in bashing the poor of Ontario. By creating more repressive laws and giving the police and business owners more authority the catastrophe of homelessness and poverty has greatly increased (as has the amount of over doses and women and girls entering the sex trade). We outlined our strategy to defeat the Safe Street Coalition. As poor people our power is disruption, we will attack every meeting they try to have. We will shut them down. We will defend our selves. We will fight back. Whatever it takes. HAC From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 14:37:15 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:37:15 -0800 Subject: [news] Britannia Trial Update Message-ID: <4058D31B.8080409@resist.ca> *BRITANNIA 9 TRIAL UPDATE:* *COURTS DROP 6 CHARGES AGAINST DEFENDANTS!* The trial of the Britannia 9 re-convened on March 8^th after a two-month recess. The prosecution continued and concluded their case with the rest of their list of 24 police witnesses and remained persistent that all the charges against the defendants be carried through. At the end of last week, after three-weeks of prosecution witnesses (almost entirely police officers), the defense brought forward applications for 'no evidence' motions. Despite the testimonies of 24 police witnesses, six charges were dropped against the Britannia defendants due to a lack of evidence to uphold the charges. Both 'assault police' charges and one 'obstruction police' charge against defendant and political organizer Ivan Drury were dropped on March 13^th and 16^th . The charge against Justin Goodman of 'assault police' and the charges of 'causing a disturbance' and 'unlawful assembly' against Minister George Feenstra were also dropped. That the crown was not able to find evidence to continue with these charges is a clear sign of the falseness of all the charges against the Britannia 9. The dropping of these charges is a great victory for the Britannia 9 against these fraudulent charges. Four weeks into the trial, and especially following the acceptance of the 'no evidence' applications, the thing that is most clear is that the whole case has been a tremendous waste of time and money. On Monday, March 15^th , Ivan Drury took the witness stand and testified against the allegation that he and other protestors caused disruptions and obstructed police in the execution of their duty at the Britannia protest. He testified that the police caused the disruption of the peace that day by assaulting the crowd over and over again and that they were not acting in lawful execution of their duty. He agreed that he had pulled people away from the police, but that he was acting in defense of the protestors, against the assaults being carried out by the police. These statements were backed up by the next witness, Tammy Tupechka, President of the Grandview-Woodlands Area Council. From the view of someone who only came across the protest once the police had already begun to assault crowd members, Tammy testified to the crowd's fear of the actions of the police and refusal of the police to discuss their actions with her. Her testimony for the day ended with the great relief she felt when the police finally left the scene. The demonstration on October 3^rd 2002 was an important development in the movement against the BC Liberal government's cuts. This demonstration, composed and organized mostly by people who were not 'usual suspects' at protests, was brutally attacked and suppressed by police. The trial of the Britannia 9 has become more than a trial against protestors. This trial has become another charge against the Vancouver Police Department in a long line of charges and convictions for police misconduct, harassment and brutality against poor and working people in Vancouver. This routine harassment and brutality is continuing still today, as is evident by the violent attacks on a group of 6 women and 2 men along Hastings Street last week. The VPD must be held accountable for its regular misconduct and brutality. All the charges against the Britannia 9, for defending themselves and others against this brutality, must be dropped. * * *WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SUPPORT:* * Come to the trial to show support for the defendants before the judge. The trial is scheduled to last until March 25 (with Fridays off) and your support is especially important now through the defense witnesses. * Donate money to the Britannia Legal Defense Fund. Murray Bush's legal costs are in the thousands of dollars as he has been denied legal aid. Contact mbush at direct.ca to donate to the Legal Defense fund or bring a cheque to court. * Write a letter demanding that the crown drop the remaining charges against the Britannia 9 (Murray Bush, Ivan Drury, George Feenstra, Justin Goodman, Jessica Mott, Scott Rohan) and send it to Rich Coleman the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General of BC: (phone) 250-356-7717 / (fax) 250-356-8270 / (mail) PO Box 9053 Stn Prov Gvt Victoria BC V8W 9E1 * * *Drop the charges against the Britannia 9!* */ /* / / /For More Information Contact:/ Shannon Bundock: Co-ordinator: Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice (FTT) and Co-Chair: Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) 778-891-1470 shannonbundock at yahoo.ca , www.fire-this.time.org , www.mawovancouver.org * * ____________________________________________________________________________________ /_ BACKGROUND: _/* WHAT HAPPENED AT BRITANNIA? * On October 3^rd , 2002, Gordon Campbell was scheduled to speak at the opening of the Canucks Family Literacy Centre at Britannia Community Centre. Parents from the Commercial Drive area and people involved in Britannia organized a protest against Campbell and his cuts to education and social programs. The demo had been called on very short notice and people were hanging out casually. A man was playing a saxophone. A tall, thin older man wearing a clown nose and a loose brown suit was doing a mime routine about being excluded from the ceremony in front of the small cluster of bored police at the door. He was seized by the police officers, swung around, handcuffed and arrested. The police dragged him around the corner and the crowd followed the police around the side of the building in the alley off of Commercial Drive. The police slammed the arrested man's face into the stucco wall of the building while people chanted "LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO!" More arrests were made when the man, Minister George Feenstra, was taken to the police wagon. The crowd grew with pedestrians witnessing the scene from Commercial Drive and streaming in to support people against the police brutality they saw. The crowd sat down in the alley and blocked the wagon from passing through. High school got out of class and students joined the protest. The police moved in to displace the crowd seated in the alley. They attacked, threatened and threw people to the ground. One 13-year old Britannia student was assaulted, picked up, carried away and arrested by the police. The standoff between the crowd and the police continued as the police pepper sprayed, beat and arrested more of the crowd. The crowd came together and stood off against the line of police and drove them off; booing and chanting, "Out, out, out! Out of our community!" The cops retreated through the alley to the cruisers parked on Commercial Drive. The crowd marched down the street without a cop in sight. While the demonstration reached the Community Policing Centre in Grandview Park, the police parked the wagons in the Canadian Tire parking lot and harassed the people arrested and cuffed inside. Scott Rohan and Murray Bush were in the back of a wagon together. The door to their cell opened and a circle of 25 cops stood around the open door in the abandoned parking lot. A massive enraged cop stepped forward into the middle of the semi-circle, pointed at Scott, called him out and threatened him. Scott looked at him and the horseshoe of cops behind him and shook his head. The six adults initially arrested were held in jail until the next evening. Two youths, including the high school kid who was punched by the cop, were arrested and charged. They were harassed, threatened and subjected to psychological examination by the police and the jail. They were released in the afternoon the day after the arrests. All the people arrested left jail with ridiculous release conditions, most notably: not to be within 2 blocks of Gordon Campbell, and not to associate with any others arrested. Three days later the cops isolated and arrested Ivan Drury, a political organizer involved in the Britannia Police Riot. As he rode his bicycle down Main Street, the cops cut him off with a cruiser and arrested him on a warrant. When they were handcuffing him on the sidewalk in front of the police station, a truck full of un-uniformed police stopped in front of him, leaned out their windows and chanted, "You will lose, Drury! You will lose!" and sped away. Ivan was held in jail overnight. * WHY WERE THE BRITANNIA 9 ARRESTED? * The Britannia protest started long before the third of October. Increased poverty, uncertain employment and work conditions, inaccessible health care, vanishing child care and the repression of dissent through unrestrained police brutality and harassment is the backbone of the BC Liberal government agenda. The Liberals use legislation to attack the lives and security of poor and working people in favour of freedom of profit for corporations and then use the army and police to crush the resulting resistance. The Liberals' legislative attacks on poor and working people have brought the reality of state oppression into the lives of many people who previously felt like they were safe and secure. The Britannia police riot has brought the awareness of the police as a tool of the government to control and forbid people's resistance to these attacks. Within this case is the fundamental question of the right to protest. The charge against many of the Britannia 9 of "attending an illegal assembly", a charge rarely used in Canadian law, asks the question, when did this assembly become illegal? How loud are we allowed to raise our voices? How effectively are we allowed to organize? The answer will be determined by this trial and by the movement of people in BC against the Liberal government. While the Britannia 9 were still in jail Gordon Campbell denounced them as 'thugs'. The real thugs are the ones who use violence, intimidation, harassment and the threat of prosecution to protect their profit driven agenda. The case of the Britannia 9 is between the thugs in government and poor and working people throughout this province who are defending ourselves against their agenda. We must support the Britannia 9 and demand that the charges be dropped in defense of all working and poor people in BC who are impacted by the BC Liberal agenda. In the struggle against cuts, the limiting and elimination of labour rights and privatization and the rest of the Liberal agenda, we must defend the people who are arrested for their involvement in this movement. From ron at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 16:52:27 2004 From: ron at resist.ca (ron) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 16:52:27 -0800 Subject: [news] Interview with Aristide Message-ID: <4058F2CB.40208@resist.ca> Part II of Democracy Now!s exclusive broadcast of Amy Goodman's interview with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide aboard his flight from the Central African Republic to Jamaica. Since winning independence from the French 200 years ago through a revolutionary slave revolt, Haiti has seen 33 military coups. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is the man overthrown in the two most recent ones. In 1991, less than a year after becoming the first democratically-elected leader in Haiti's history, Aristide was overthrown by paramilitary death squads working closely with US intelligence agencies. After a few years in exile, Aristide returned to Haiti in 1994 in a US military plane to serve the remaining few months left in his term. In 2000, Aristide won the presidential election a second time. Once again, a few years after being elected, Aristide has been overthrown in a coup - by many of same men who led the armed insurrection against him a decade earlier. People like Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former number 2 man in FRAPH convicted in absentia for 1994 Raboteau massacre and the September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izm?ry; Guy Philippe, a former police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after authorities discovered him plotting a coup with a clique of other police chiefs who had all been trained by US Special Forces in Ecuador during the 1991-1994 coup and Jean Tatoune another leader of FRAPH, also convicted of massacre in Raboteau. Two weeks ago after being taken by force to the Central African Republic in what Aristide calls a US-orchestrated coup d'etat, the Haitian president defied Washington this weekend and returned to the Caribbean. He is now in Jamaica, just 130 miles or so from Haiti. I was one of two journalists allowed on the plane that took a delegation of US and Jamaican officials to escort President Aristide and his wife Mildred back to the Caribbean. As we crossed the Atlantic on our way to Kingston, Jamaica, I had a chance to conduct an extensive interview with President Aristide on-board the Gulfstream jet. Today we play Part II of my interview with Aristide, where he discusses his time as president, the first coup, disbanding the military and more: JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: We had an army of 7,000 soldiers controlling 40% of the national region. Not only they led those coup, they had 32 coup d'etats, the last one 33. After the coup they led in 1991, they and members of a criminal organization, well known FRAPH, killed more than 5,000 Haitians. Some people don't like to hear 5,000 because for them it could be double or more than that. Let's say more than 5,000 people were killed by the army at that time with the help of the well-known criminal organization called FRAPH. When i went back on October 15, 1994, it was obvious that the Haitian people couldn't go ahead with killers. The Haitian people wanted people to protect them, not people to kill them. So, the army was disbanded. Now they reached a way to have more drug dealers, like Guy Philippe who was arrested for drugs in Panama, sent back to Santo Domingo and then back to Haiti with the assistance of those who pretend to restore peaces to Haiti, Chamblain was already c onvicted twice and now he is back. So having criminals, drug dealers, thugs who were convicted to come back with an army, then when they guess what we had through those 32 coup d'etats, leading Haiti from misery to misery while we want to move from misery to poverty with dignity, this is maybe what they have in their minds. AMY GOODMAN: When the CARICOM U.S. Group came and negotiated the U.S.-backed peace plan that you accepted with Noriega, Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State representing the United States, how did they refer to the opposition, how did they refer to the people you just described as Jodel Chamblain, Guy Philippe? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: The meeting we had with members of my government and diplomats and heads of international delegations in my office, Mr. Noriega referring to those thugs terrorists said "I will call them killers", that's what he said. I'm shocked when today I still see members of the international community acting with those killers. More than that accompanying Guy Philippe, a killer, to distribute food to people, so trying to project another image of him when as a well-known drug dealer and a killer he should be put in jail. So, it is scandalous. The world needs to know that. The more they listen to what is going on in Haiti today, the more they may join the Haitian people to prevent the killers to continue to do the same, killing people. AMY GOODMAN: Jean-Bertrand Aristide on board the chartered jet as we headed over the Atlantic. The U.S. Delegation headed by congress member Maxine Waters and the Jamaican Member of Parliament Sharon Hay-Webster. Bringing the Aristides to Jamaica, this as members of the Bush administration from Condoleezza Rice to Donald Rumsfeld warned that Jean-Bertrand Aristide should not return to this hemisphere. I asked Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide if he could talk about the killing of the justice minister in Haiti in 1993; Louis Jodel Chamblain, one of the current so-called rebels, was convicted of murdering Guy Mallory. This was Jean-Bertrand Aristide's response. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: From 1991 to 1994, the Minister of Justice, Guy Mallory, Father Mallory's son, Antoine Izmery, the people they killed [inaudible] lost their lives because they were calling for democracy, the restoration of the constitutional order for my return to Haiti. After I returned, we had a trial. And Chamblain was convicted by a court of us. Twice. In spite of that, nothing happened only impunity and assistance and heavy machine guns were provided to him and the orders to have them appearing as rebels, as if they were not anymore killers, people already convicted. This is the cynical picture. AMY GOODMAN: We have our September 11, 2001. Chile has their September 11, 1973, the day the Salvador Allende died in the palace as the Pinochet forces rose to power. You have two separate September 11ths, 1988 and 1993. Can you describe what happened to you and your parish, your congregation on September 11, 1988 at San Jean Bosco? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: We were praying, we were celebrating our faith in god, and for us god means love, peace, justice, freedom, solidarity. Getting together to pray means empowering all those who share the same faith. If you stand up for justice, then you cannot close the eyes to not see poor people willing to have jobs, to eat with dignity. Once you stand up for that, then you may have people not only rejecting you but also putting fire in a church, burning people. This is what happened that day, September 11, 1988. When we had it elsewhere, not in a church but in a country like Chile and President Allende willing to stand up for human beings, for the rights to eat, the rights to go to school, the rights to have health care, and so and so, people who don't care about human beings rejected that coup d'etat. When on September 11th 2001, something tragical happened in the United States called terrorism, we saw the world rejecting terrorism. Asked if when, for instance, we h ave Guy Philippe, Chamblain, well known as terrorists, drug dealer, convicted people, armed by those who pretend helping Haiti to kill Haitians, it's like if...it's not anymore terrorism. So, racism, somehow is linked to that cynical game. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! "The War and Peace Report" I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue with the interview with President Aristide, I had asked the Haitian president on board this flight where he and his wife traveled for 17 hours to get back to Jamaica, you can go to our website at democracynow.org to see the chronicle of this trip: brought to the Central African Republic by the United States with dozens of U.S. military, and security taken there, the early hours of February 29, taken out of Haiti, not knowing where they were going. They said told by the -- one of top men in the U.S. Embassy, Louis Moreno who had come to the President's residence, that he would be going to address the press. Instead, he was rushed on to a -- he was rushed on to a U.S. plane. I asked Jean-Bertrand Aristide if he could go back in time, as we look at the current rebel leaders like Chamblain, convicted of the murders of not only the justice minister in 1993, Guy Mallory, but the Haitian businessman Antoine Izmery in 1993 about this significance of Haiti's September 11 in 1988, the massacre at the church, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's church. He had been a priest. And that happened September 11, 1988. Five years later, September 11, 1993, the Haitian multimillionaire businessman Antoine Izmery join add procession to remember the victims of the massacre and he, too, was executed. I asked Jean-Bertrand Aristide about this. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: On September 11, 1988, they burned the church, they burned people, killed people as I explained. While I was in exile, Antoine Izmery went to the church of Sacre Coeur on the same day, on September 11, to remember what happened in 1988, to bring his solidarity to the parents, relatives, friends of the victims and also to empower those who are peacefully fighting for our return, which was clearly the restoration of democracy to Haiti. And the same people who made it happen in Saint-Jean Bosco made it happen again in Sacre Coeur. The worst was already bad, but it's shameful when we see today, the same hands, killing people, burning houses almost the same way. AMY GOODMAN: Jodel Chamblain was convicted of Izmery's murder? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: Yes. Yes. AMY GOODMAN: Yet when we watch television, where most people get their news and information, we almost never hear them mentioned. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: We will not, since last November, they brought to Haiti a good number of journalists. We fought hard for the freedom of press. So we will continue to respect the rights of every single journalist. But unfortunately, what happened from November to today is a tragic event where it seems money was spend to bribe journalists, not all of them, but some of them, money was used to finance radio stations playing the card of so-called opposition, linked to Chamblain, linked to Guy Philippe, being their voices. When Jean Tautoune was convicted, put in jail, escaped from jail, and giving interviews to those radio stations, to TVs, which kind of impunity are we talking about? Which kind of freedom for the press are we talking about? Is it freedom for the press as a cover for impunity? Or as a full place where you use your rights to talk, to criticize, to say what you want? Yes. We had that in Haiti where journalists could talk. But all the journalists who were in Haiti from November to the coup or kidnapping were not there just to tell the truth. But also some of them were there because they were paid to relay the lives which strayed this information around the world, paving the way for the kidnapping. AMY GOODMAN: Who paid them? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: Every year, for the past couple of years, $56 million U.S. Dollars went to Haiti to finance political parties, -- , radio stations, TV stations, journalists, who got all visa from embassies, lying to discredit our fragile democracy, our money from those $56 million U.S. dollars. Recently, for the past year, it became $70 million U.S. dollars. So, this is well known. It is not a secret. AMY GOODMAN: So, you're saying the U.S. government forces poured this money in. JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: That money came from abroad: U.S., Europe, through E.U., and organizations like that. AMY GOODMAN: Do you see similarities -- JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: And maybe this is the last question for T.V. AMY GOODMAN: Ok. Do you see similarities with what happened with you and what is continuing to happen with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: They say that I was behind a coup which happened in Venezuela and still behind what is going on in Venezuela. AMY GOODMAN: The International Republican Institute? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: Correct. They say they have their hands through what is happening in Haiti. Often, they organize seminars for the so-called opposition where they had Guy Philippe, Chamblain and members of the Haitian opposition, training them to kill, to talk after killing, to project an image of democratic opposition with heavy machine guns on your shoulders, blood on their hands, etcetera. So, this is, from my point of view, the same hands behind the same things happening in two different countries. AMY GOODMAN: You have information that people who support you are people who were part of Lavalas are being threatened or killed in Haiti right now? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: A good number of them are in hiding. But because they are cowards, but because this is a strategy to spend time where they hay not kill you, to come back in a peaceful way and continue to support democracy calling for the restoration of the constitution of order. Others were killed. I'm very sad when they say about those who were killed. Others left the country by boat to go to Florida. And, unfortunately, when the house is on fire, those who put fire in the house are the same who send back the victims fleeing the fire put in that house. Violation of international law and attraction to have more people because as long as you continue to kill people in the country, you invite them to come to your country because they will continue to flee that occupation. AMY GOODMAN: When you were ousted in 1991, for the three-year periods, there was not only a mass movement in Haiti, but a mass movement in the United States of support and solidarity. Do you have any message you want to send to the American people? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: I will say thank you to all the American people who supported democracy with the Haitian people and who continue to support the Haitian people supporting democracy in Haiti. We want elections in Haiti. Free, fair, democratic elections. That means one human being, one vote, which is a democratic principle. We want to respect that principle. I know how the American people care for that democratic principle. They want to see their vote respected. As we in Haiti want to see the vote of the people respected. By supporting us, the American people support what they want to be supported in their own country and because any democratic process, which is well protected, may be good for any country where they want democratic systems. I think somehow Haiti and the United States, we are linked by democracy and democratic principles. As we are linked to all the countries where they care for that democratic principle, one human being, one vote, that's why I thank by expressing our gratitude to our friends living in the U.S. or being U.S. citizens. We think they find energy to continue to build solidarity with the Haitian people. Once we have Haitians in Savannah, I having -- having solidarity with the American people to free the American people. Once we got our independence in Haiti, at that time Guyana by itself represented almost half of the territory of the United States at that time. So, we have in common many things. Historic ties. Principles, democratic principles, which makes it good for us to continue to work hard for democracies, which has to flourish not only in one country or in two countries, but in our region. AMY GOODMAN: Very last question. You were going to Jamaica now, which is very close to Haiti. Do you see yourself returning to Haiti? JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: I always paid attention to the voice of the Haitian people. As I will continue to pay attention to their voice. Paying attention to their voice respectfully I will know what to do. Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: President Aristide, thank you very much. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 23:41:41 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:41:41 -0000 Subject: [news] Police report clears officers in 'Riot at the Hyatt' Message-ID: <20040318074142.12047.qmail@resist.ca> VANCOUVER - An extensive external investigation of Vancouver's 1998 "Riot at the Hyatt" has concluded that the police behaved appropriately that night. Protesters were injured and arrested in the clash outside a federal Liberal Party $400-a-plate dinner, featuring then-prime minister Jean Chretien. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/17/151712/182 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 23:41:42 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:41:42 -0000 Subject: [news] Racist Immigration Jail Under Construction Message-ID: <20040318074143.12059.qmail@resist.ca> Immigration Canada's infamous Toronto detention centre, the Celebrity Inn, is closing down. In its place, a larger jail is set to open on April 1st. The Heritage Inn, a former hotel on Rexdale Boulevard in the city's north-west end, will hold even more (im)migrants and refugees - people imprisoned because they do not have landed status. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/16/141830/814 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 17 23:41:42 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 07:41:42 -0000 Subject: [news] Martial Law and Canada's Bill C-17 Message-ID: <20040318074143.12068.qmail@resist.ca> After 2 previous attempts at passing the worst of the Draconian War of Terror legislation in Canada, the government has reintroduced Bill C-17. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/15/185542/946 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 18 10:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] Britannia 9 trial update Message-ID: <20040318181703.19674.qmail@resist.ca> After three-weeks of prosecution witnesses (almost entirely police officers), the defense brought forward applications for 'no evidence' motions. Despite the testimonies of 24 police witnesses, six charges were dropped against the Britannia defendants due to a lack of evidence to uphold the charges. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/17/14447/0399 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 18 10:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 18:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] Fahim Kayani - former Project Thread Detainee - to be deported Message-ID: <20040318181703.19673.qmail@resist.ca> (Toronto) Fahim Kayani, one of the victims of Project Thread, an investigation conducted by the RCMP and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, is facing imminent deportation. All 24 men arrested under Project Thread had their names and photographs splashed around the world in headlines linking them to terrorism. Within the first week of their arrests in August, all allegations of terrorism were dropped and no charges were ever laid, yet all the men continued to be detained for months to come. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/94238/0824 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 18 11:17:05 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:17:05 -0000 Subject: [news] Terrorism's Future Message-ID: <20040318191705.25510.qmail@resist.ca> by Rahul Mahajan Whether the recent attacks in Spain, in which 190 people were killed and nearly 1500 wounded, were carried out by the Basque separatist ETA or by al-Qaeda, they make one thing very clear: terrorism cannot be fought by military means. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/93044/2889 From christoff at resist.ca Thu Mar 18 13:56:48 2004 From: christoff at resist.ca (Stefan Christoff) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 13:56:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [news] CKUT Radio: Aziz Choudry - Canada Means War Message-ID: CKUT Radio: Aziz Choudry - Canada Means War Listen to a presentation entitled Canada Means War given at a recent conference held in Montreal, by Aziz Choudry a Montreal based activist, researcher and writer on neoliberal globalization, colonization, and struggles for social, political and economic justice. The presentation addresses the involvement of Canadian corporations & the government in economic, political and militaristic colonization throughout the global south, focusing on the continued displacement of indigenous people throughout the world, from Turtle Island (North America) to Aotearoa (New Zealand). -> To listen to the presentation from Aziz Choudry visit: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=8836 -> To read articles from Aziz Choudry visit: http://www.zmag.org ----------------------- From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 08:17:06 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:17:06 -0000 Subject: [news] Berg hearing continues with sister Message-ID: <20040319161707.14422.qmail@resist.ca> VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)--The nature of Jeff Berg's injuries has been detailed for the first time by his sister's lawyer, appearing before a police complaints commission case-management conference in Vancouver. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/233346/118 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 08:17:06 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:17:06 -0000 Subject: [news] Resist! News Feed now available by web, email and RSS Message-ID: <20040319161706.14419.qmail@resist.ca> Now, a summary of every story that appears at http://resist.ca is automatically mailed to the news email list, news at lists.resist.ca. The same feed, read by over 1000 people every day, is also available in RSS format for those of you that prefer to use aggregated news readers. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/11268/9628 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 08:17:06 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:17:06 -0000 Subject: [news] Britain's butterflys point to next mass extinction Message-ID: <20040319161707.14420.qmail@resist.ca> A milestone study of British birds, butterflies and wild flowers has revealed the strongest evidence yet that we are on the verge of a mass extinction of global wildlife - the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/232626/851 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 08:17:06 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:17:06 -0000 Subject: [news] UN Recommends Reparations for Africville Residents Message-ID: <20040319161707.14421.qmail@resist.ca> Dominionpaper.ca - Halifax - The fight for compensation for former residents of Africville received a boost when a United Nations report urged Canada to consider paying reparations. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/233858/311 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 10:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 18:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Britain's butterflys point to next mass extinction Message-ID: <20040319181704.29130.qmail@resist.ca> independent.co.uk - By Steve Connor, Science Editor A milestone study of British birds, butterflies and wild flowers has revealed the strongest evidence yet that we are on the verge of a mass extinction of global wildlife - the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/18/232626/851 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 14:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] City councillor challenges women's centre cuts Message-ID: <20040319221703.20962.qmail@resist.ca> VANCOUVER - Vancouver city councillor Ellen Woodsworth is appealing to the provincial government to reconsider cuts to funding for 37 women's centres across the province. The province will cut $1.7 million in core funding for the centres effective March 31. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/19/132559/665 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 14:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] COPE backroom battle heating up Message-ID: <20040319221704.20963.qmail@resist.ca> VANCOUVER - CBC News has learned that three city councillors from Vancouver's ruling civic party have come dangerously close to being thrown out of the COPE caucus. Anne Roberts, Tim Louis, and Fred Bass were accused of violating COPE policy, after their recent refusal to vote in favour of the TransLink 10-year plan. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/19/132445/142 From news at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 14:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] Victoria could get safe injection site Message-ID: <20040319221703.20961.qmail@resist.ca> VICTORIA - Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe wants to follow Vancouver's lead, and is pushing to open the second safe injection site in Canada in his city. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/19/132713/633 From sharai at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 14:36:57 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:36:57 -0600 Subject: [news] Resignation from Transgender Health Program of Jamie Message-ID: <405B7609.8070509@resist.ca> Resignation from Transgender Health Program of Jamie > Lee Hamilton > > Dear Friends, > > > For the last five months I have sat on a transgender > advisory committee at Vancouver Coastal Health for > the > Transgender Health Program. > > This program sadly is being operated by staff in a > manner which is inconsistant with the Policy adopted > by Vancouver Coastal Health for its Transgender > Health > Program. > > The Transgender Health Program was set up based on > the > reccomendations of clinician Dr Lily Kopala to > deliver > desperately needed services to transsexual and > non-specific gender identified individuals > (transgender) after the closure of the Gender Clinic > at Vancouver Hospital. It was reccomended that the > model to be incorporated was based on a 'client > driven holistic approach'. > > In Dr Kapola's report, she made some key > reccomendations which were adopted by Vancouver > Coastal Health as policy. One key reccomendation was > that 'an advisory committee be set up to develop > strategies to reach populations under-represented in > consultation and planning'. Unfortunately, in > meetings > organized by the paid staff co-ordinator he has a > number of times went out on his own to different > parts > of BC to gather information on > Transsexual/transgender > health care needs. He never consulted with the > advisory committee before doing this outreach which > essentially took away any strategic planning or > influence the committee may have deemed necessary > for > positive outcomes as per Dr Lily Kopala's > reccomendations and stated Vancouver Coastal Health > policy. > > Another key reccomendation was that 'the advisory > committee develop a program evaluation component > where > > data from all clients is compiled and analyzed. > Outcome measures must be articulated by the advisory > committee and reported to the Vancouver Coastal > Health > Authority'. Again in a blatant disregard for the > advisory committee role, the paid staff member > posted > a job opening after the person he originally hired > was > resigning after 5 months into a two year contract. > Then to add insult to injury this staff member along > with the departing staff member determined on their > own what was the criteria needed for this re-posting > and proceeded to advertise the position without > first > consulting with advisory committee members. Then > these > two members in a period of two days short-listed the > numerous applications down to three individuals who > they thought were best for the job. Again they did > this without any consultation or imput from the > advisory committee. Moreover since an outreach > program > was instituted by the Program for Sex trade workers, > it was vitally important for advisory members to see > the preliminary data that had been collected from > this > specific program to see how it was working. Sadly > this > hasn't happened and now it appears these two paid > staff are selecting a new person for the job who may > not have the skills that the advisory committee > deems > necessary for this badly needed outreach program > component. > > Due to the actions of paid staff's disregard and > disrespect of Vancouver Coastal Health Policy and > hence the responsibilities and role of the advisory > committee, I feel it necessary to resign as an > advisory committee member. I will continue and > attempt > to affect change for my community in a manner which > is > more in keeping with my philosophy of inclusivity > and > client/member driven care. > > Sincerely, > > Jamie Lee Hamilton > Miss Gay Vancouver From sharai at resist.ca Fri Mar 19 14:39:21 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:39:21 -0600 Subject: [news] RE: Transgender Health Program/An Open Letter Message-ID: <405B7699.5000105@resist.ca> Hi, I'm happy to speak with anyone who received this letter about the concerns Jamie Lee raises. I am out of town until Tuesday, but can reply by email this morning or on Monday -- or a message can be left at 604-734-1514 (1-866-999-1514 for anyone who is calling long-distance). First, I have to say that I am sorry to see Jamie Lee leave the Advisory Group, as her input has been very valuable. I have let her know that her feedback is still welcome in whatever way she feels comfortable providing it. I do want to clarify what the process was for determining the criteria for the community counsellor job, and also the process for hiring. Prior to the first round of hiring in autumn 2003, at community forums held in Vancouver and Victoria, people suggested criteria that they felt were important for a transgender community counsellor. The notes from this discussion were also circulated to individuals who had expressed an interest in having input but could not attend the forums, and to all BC-based trans organizations and listservs to allow for additional input. The community input was then used to create the requirements outlined in the job position. In October 2003, the job was posted as a contract running to March 31, 2004. When the person in the position informed me he would not be renewing his contract due to a move out-of-province, the job was reposted, with the same criteria as the initial posting. Two weeks were given for people to submit applications. After the closing date, the community counsellor and I went over the applications and shortlisted three people who we felt had the strongest background in terms of the criteria for the job. The Advisory Group is a vital mechanism for trans people, loved ones, and service providers to come together to brainstorm ideas and creative ways to problem-solve. For example, the Advisory Group has been discussing ways to collect and evaluate client data, and also first steps in establishing a drop-in for trans people in the sex trade. More information on the Advisory Group is posted on our website at http://www.vch.ca/transhealth/about/advisory.html Community forums are also an important way for the broader community to stay informed and to give input. From its inception, the Transgender Health Program has held open community forums every four months in Vancouver and Victoria, with additional forums in rural areas as the budget permits. Notes from these forums are circulated publicly for further discussion. I am happy to send copies to anyone who wants them. I hope this helps address some of the issues Jamie Lee has mentioned, and welcome any questions from anyone who wants to talk further. Regards, Joshua Mira Goldberg Transgender Health Program :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: Transgender Health Program Three Bridges Community Health Centre 1292 Hornby Street Vancouver, BC Canada V6Z 1W2 Phone/TTY: 604-734-1514 or 1-866-999-1514 (toll-free in BC) Fax: 604-844-2223 Email: transhealth at vch.ca Web: http://www.vch.ca/transhealth From news at resist.ca Sat Mar 20 11:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 19:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] Anti-Americanism spreading, poll says Message-ID: <20040320191703.3967.qmail@resist.ca> According to a survey headed by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, a majority of respondents in several countries believe that Washington is conducting its international campaign against terrorism to control Middle Eastern oil and dominate the world. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/20/10389/6623 From news at resist.ca Sat Mar 20 11:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 19:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] Death of man stopped by police brings suspicion from Montreal's black community Message-ID: <20040320191703.3968.qmail@resist.ca> The "blue wall of silence" surrounding the death of Rohan Wilson must be overcome, Rev. Darryl Gray said during an emotional funeral service for the 28-year-old father yesterday. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/20/103110/686 From news at resist.ca Sun Mar 21 12:17:08 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 20:17:08 -0000 Subject: [news] Noam Chomsky draws big crowd in Vancouver Message-ID: <20040321201708.22236.qmail@resist.ca> "No more!" thousands of voices boomed in Vancouver yesterday, joining hundreds of thousands around the world and Canada, in a rally against the western occupation of Iraq on the first anniversary of the war. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/112252/154 From news at resist.ca Sun Mar 21 12:17:08 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 20:17:08 -0000 Subject: [news] Worldwide protests demand Iraq pullout Message-ID: <20040321201708.22235.qmail@resist.ca> Reuters - 20 March, 2004 New York - More than a million antiwar protesters have poured into the streets of cities around the globe on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to demand the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/113317/489 From news at resist.ca Sun Mar 21 13:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 21:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] =?iso-8859-1?q?Guant=E1namo_Britons_furious_at_US_=27prop?= =?iso-8859-1?q?aganda=27?= Message-ID: <20040321211703.25138.qmail@resist.ca> Friday March 19, 2004 - The Guardian The MP and a lawyer for Britons released from Guant?namo Bay have accused the US of issuing "propaganda" after it told a newspaper that four of the men were trained al-Qaida or Taliban fighters. Relatives of the men dismissed the US claims as "lies", and lawyers accused the US of issuing the claims in retaliation after the Britons told newspapers of punishment beatings and psychological torture at the American detention camp in Cuba. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/122852/565 From skisby at web.net Mon Mar 22 02:25:39 2004 From: skisby at web.net (Steve Kisby) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 02:25:39 -0800 Subject: [news] Berger Commission Precludes Proportional Representation Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20040322022539.00f05b50@pop.web.net> http://www.alternatives.com/prorep/fvv-0322.pdf Fair Vote Vancouver Media Release For Immediate Release Berger Commission Precludes Proportional Representation VANCOUVER -- March 22, 2004 -- Local Vancouver democracy advocates are calling on the Berger Commission (the Vancouver Electoral Reform Commission) to be true to its educational mandate by educating Vancouver voters on the pros and cons of proportional systems or a proportional wards system for the City of Vancouver, and to fairly consider that system. Currently, the Commission's web site features only three first-past-the-post systems of at-large (the system that is currently used), a full wards system, and a mix of the current at-large system and wards. At the opening of public forums, the Berger Commission has been saying that only the three systems of at-large, wards, and a mixed system (of at-large and wards) are under consideration. "The Berger Commission's mandate is to consider all systems, not just the three first-past-the-post systems it is currently featuring and promoting," said Steve Kisby, a spokesperson for the group, "We feel the commission's educational mandate should have compelled it to research and feature proportional or a proportional wards system in its literature and on its web site on par with the other three systems it is promoting." City Council has asked the Commission to report to Council on "other reforms for the improvement of civic democracy that would require amendments to the Vancouver Charter or other statutes in order to be implemented" and to "report to Council on the merits of the current at-large system, the ward system and other alternative systems." The Berger Commission has said that it "intends to make recommendations divided into two parts: What can the Council do on its own, and what will require provincial legislation." "It is fully within the mandate of the Commission to consider a proportional system or a proportional wards system," said Kisby. "Further, within the commission's educational mandate we feel that the commission has an obligation to fairly present a proportional or a proportional wards system on par with the other three systems the Commission has presented," continued Kisby. Proportional Representation (Pro-Rep) systems are the most widely used voting system in the world -- 75% of democracies with 2 million or more people use some form of Pro-Rep. However, one must look beyond Canada and the U.S. to find these systems. While these systems can be designed in many ways, the central idea is very simple. If an affiliation of candidates or a political party receives 40% of the popular vote, that affiliation or party elects an equivalent proportion of candidates. It is believed that the political leaders now in control at City Hall have set their sights on a full wards system for Vancouver, and are just going through the motions to implement that system. A full wards system is the same flawed system we now have provincially and federally. Fair Vote Vancouver is made up of voters who came together in response to Vancouver's Electoral Reform Commission. They believe a voting system should be measured on these four principles: Proportionality (where there should be a close correspondence between the percentage of votes a party or political affiliation wins and the percentage of seats it wins), Voter Choice (where comparatively you want a voting system that is better at presenting the choices that voters want, and encourages voters to vote sincerely, rather than strategically), Local Representation (where all regions in Vancouver should be fairly represented in City Council), and Every Vote Counts (where the voting system should accord equal weight to all ballots cast and should minimize the wastage of votes). A proportional wards system would meet the above principles. A proportional system was one of the choices offered in the 1996 referendum on electoral reform in Vancouver. In the 1999 Vancouver election, COPE supported a proportional wards system. Background information can be found at http://www.alternatives.com/prorep and the group can be contacted at fvv at alternatives.com -30- For more information: Steve Kisby, 604-323-0204 (phone), 604-645-2099 (pager), skisby at web.net From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 22 10:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] Couple celebrates as Quebec appeals court ruling paves way for gay marriages Message-ID: <20040322181703.10904.qmail@resist.ca> Quebec Court of Appeal paved the way for gay marriages in the province with a ruling that dismissed an appeal by religious groups of a lower-court decision. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/224724/850 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 22 10:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] Israel kills Hamas' Leader Sheikh Ahmad Yasin Message-ID: <20040322181703.10905.qmail@resist.ca> Israeli helicopter gunships have fired missiles at Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as he left a mosque before dawn, killing the Hamas leader and at least three other people. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/231042/508 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 22 10:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] US Admin out to prove right onWMD Message-ID: <20040322181702.10903.qmail@resist.ca> TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) - Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq?s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/23338/2905 From news at resist.ca Mon Mar 22 10:17:02 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:17:02 -0000 Subject: [news] Premier plans to eliminate WCB control of workers' Health and Safety Message-ID: <20040322181702.10902.qmail@resist.ca> Vancouver - B.C. Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair today said Gordon Campbell should keep his hands off workers' health and safety. Sinclair made the comments in connection with leaked information that shows overwhelming industry opposition to a backroom plan that would eliminate Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) oversight of health and safety in the oil and gas sector. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/21/22553/1592 From resist at resist.ca Mon Mar 22 23:13:56 2004 From: resist at resist.ca (resist at resist.ca) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 23:13:56 -0800 Subject: [news] Re: Incoming Message Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: aagwxwuudc.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1356 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Attach.rar Type: application/octet-stream Size: 21504 bytes Desc: not available URL: From news at resist.ca Tue Mar 23 12:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 20:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Fahim Kayani supporters arrested for occupation Message-ID: <20040323201705.10956.qmail@resist.ca> TORONTO - Eight supporters of Fahim Kayani were arrested occupying the office of Judy Sgro, Minister for Immigration, this morning, demanding that Immigration Canada rescind Fahim?s deportation and grant him landed status. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/23/115632/680 From news at resist.ca Tue Mar 23 12:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 20:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Motion to Restore Late Night Bus Service Comes Before TransLink Board Message-ID: <20040323201705.10957.qmail@resist.ca> The Bus Riders Union forces vote on motion to restore Night Owl Bus service while rejecting Translink's recent "Night Bus" report and its' purposed solutions for late night transit in the Vancouver Region. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/22/143011/845 From news at resist.ca Tue Mar 23 13:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Selling Stephen Harper Message-ID: <20040323211704.3728.qmail@resist.ca> Seven Oaks The ?new? Conservative Party of Canada chose its ?new? leader this past weekend. The convention featured little to no suspense, as Stephen Harper, the ?former? leader of the Canadian Reform Alliance, won easily on the first ballot. It's likely that only right-wingers, and perhaps die-hard fans of CBC's Don Newman, tuned in for the wall-to-wall coverage. But the rest of us would be well advised to keep close tabs on the massive marketing campaign currently underway to rehabilitate Canada's other ruling party. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/23/122339/788 From rebel_jill98 at yahoo.co.jp Wed Mar 24 00:55:22 2004 From: rebel_jill98 at yahoo.co.jp (=?iso-2022-jp?B?GyRCIXpOOU8yP00bKEIvIEpJTEw=?=) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:55:22 +0900 Subject: [news] A Street report of osaka city on 23 March 2004 Message-ID: <001701c4117e$60512a60$d949e5d2@computer> *THEY increase the pressure to the poor... A Street report of osaka city on 23 March 2004 Comrades; "spring has come."...now, we all are forced to hear this false informations by mass media, on the streets, sidewalks, parks, riversides, underpasses...of all over the city. so, we will ask,"in where? maybe, season of spring has come. however, spring has not come on our lives yet. nasty and cold bloody attacking by osaka city authorities are still continued all over the city." following are parts of evictions(or sweeping out) in osaka city. --Riverbank of kidu river(west of city): in north area of kidugawa(near the osaka dome baseball stadium), city authorities evicted tents and they will plan to build a pavement on there. also, they plan to drive some water transportation systems for sight-seeing. economic circle also supports this plan. (THEY have insisted to plan the city like a Venice. of course, they strongly demand to sweep all of lower classes away. next year(2005), they will declare that osaka is a city that respect all human rights. NO KIDDING! we must smash their fuckin' politics by all people's power!!) homeless comrades in this area were swept out, then, those comrades forced to live other areas.(f.e; Utsubo park...etc) this riverbank had over 100 huts. about 80 huts remained. when i talked with residents at the riverbank, a resident told me, "police, maritime safety agency often watched our huts from their ships." actually, in that time, i saw the guard ship of maritime safety agency. they slowly watched us, and moved. --Matsushima park(west of city): this park has over 30 of tents or huts now. recently, city authorities and its park officers planed to build a indoor-swimming pool in this park, then, some of homeless comrades evicted by this plan. city authorities forced homeless comrades to select to be accommodated to "jiritsu-shien-center", and its officers forced homeless comrades to destroy comrades' tents or huts soon!(there are a lot of same matters in osaka like Nagai park, Nishinari park, Osaka castle park, Kamagasaki...und so weiter!! those are "real hospitality" of osaka city authorities and its subjects!!) --south front area of JR osaka station(north-ward): see an Association of Kamagasaki-patrol's page(http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet/9279/ ). evictions and sweeping out are continued by city authorities. of course, despite of crackdowns and violent suppressions by Geheimnis Polizei, struggles will be continued! --(Hirano)Shirasagi park(higashisumiyoshi-ward, near the Nagai park): this park had 20 tents or huts. when a incident(Bodily injury resulting in death) happened, city authorities and citizens who live in near the park blamed and planed to sweep homeless comrades out soon. teens(junior highschool students who live in near the park) often assaulted our comrades' tents or huts and ran away. when an armed homeless comrade fought them back, and one of youth assailants injured, police arrested the homeless comrade, and youth assailants(junior high school students) was innocent. ...then, by March 2004, there are 4 tents in this park. on 11 March 2004, park officers succeed to sweep homeless comrades out in this park. they persistently persuaded a comrade, and send a hospital, then, his tent broke down by park officers. city authorities obliged him to give up to have a retreat place. Merciful? we have been bored with THEIR TERRIBLE POLITICS for many years! no to any Auschwitz! no to any medical arrested asylums! they have enjoyed throwing us into trash boxes with their smiling since 2000. so, we have shouted: "Ni ne estas la ruboj. Ni ne transiru!!(we are NOT DUST! we shall NOT BE MOVED!!)". --Nagai park tent village: 21 march 2004, park officers planed to sweep out a tent. yesterday, we held a collective bargaining. they confessed they will plan to expand their apartheit fences(last april, they built!) for their works, and also will plan to invade our village territory. of course, we rejected and blamed their evil plans! they watch us on 24 hours, and try to take advantage of our weak points. so, we must try to defend more strictly. Ni ne transiru. Vi venkos! Ni venkos!! la bataloj continuos... in struggle and in solidarity.(rebel_JILL) http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet-Bull/8932/ http://au.geocities.com/nagaipark_nakamanokai/osaka_street040323report.html /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ we'll be singing when we're winning we'll be singing i get knocked down but i get up again u're never going to keep me down(ChumbaWamba) --------------------------------------- ??????????????????? ????????????2003.3.24 ????? ???????...????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????? ??????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????(?????)??????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????2005??????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????100?????????????80?????????? ????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????? ???????????? ????????30????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????...??????????????? ????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????? ??????????????? http://nakamanokai.0catch.com/shirasagi2002oct30.htm ????????20????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????...??????2004 ?3??????????4??????????2004?3?11?????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????NO????????? ?????NO??????2000???????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????? ????????????????? ?2004?3?21?????????????????????????????? ?22??????????????????????????????????? ???????????????4????????????????????? http://au.geocities.com/nagaipark_nakamanokai/before_after0425a.html ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????x_nomado? http://www.geocities.co.jp/WallStreet-Bull/8932/ ?2005?????????????????????????????? Last changed: 03/24/2004, 13:50:12 /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ we'll be singing when we're winning we'll be singing i get knocked down but i get up again u're never going to keep me down(ChumbaWamba) $$ $$ $$ $$ \\ $$ $$ \\ $$ $$$$$$$$$$$$ $$ $$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$$ $$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\ instead of THEIR violence, WE must try to get OUR MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES all over the world.(@Libertaire-JILL) rebel_jill98 at yahoo.co.jp __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? http://bb.yahoo.co.jp/ From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 24 10:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 18:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Bus Riders Win Back Night Owl Buses! Message-ID: <20040324181704.32514.qmail@resist.ca> Bus Riders successfully pressure TransLink to restore late night bus service for low-wage workers and the safety of marginalized communities. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/23/204512/949 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 25 10:17:03 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 18:17:03 -0000 Subject: [news] Iraq under the U.S. thumb - Naomi Klein Message-ID: <20040325181704.17969.qmail@resist.ca> The White House wants to make the Iraqis seem to be out of control, incapable of governing without U.S. direction URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/25/95911/5282 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 25 11:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] Lack of training leads to dirty hospital in BC, say cleaners Message-ID: <20040325191704.23590.qmail@resist.ca> Tales of blood smears in labour rooms that should be spotless, litter left behind beds in the emergency ward and inexperienced workers entering infectious isolation rooms are seeping from MSA Hospital. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/25/10737/2464 From news at resist.ca Thu Mar 25 11:17:04 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:17:04 -0000 Subject: [news] The chilling implications of this state killing - Robert Fisk Message-ID: <20040325191704.23584.qmail@resist.ca> It doesn't take an awful lot of courage to murder a paraplegic in a wheelchair. But it takes only a few moments to absorb the implications of the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. Yes, he endorsed suicide bombings - including the murder of Israeli children. Yes, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, in a wheelchair or not. But something went wrong with the narrative of the news story yesterday - and something infinitely more dangerous, another sinister precedent - was set for our brave new world. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/25/10116/4193 From sharai at resist.ca Thu Mar 25 15:45:54 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 17:45:54 -0600 Subject: [news] Transsexual Pride Message-ID: <40636F32.8090203@resist.ca> Hi Friends!!! As some of you may know there is lively discussion happening across Canada regarding Transsexual inclusion in terms of the Transgender umbrella concept. Some years back in the early 90's the term Transgender was coined by Charles 'Virginia' Prince, a self identified heterosexual transvestite male who desired to adopt the umbrella term of Transgender. As there was then and is now, considerable debate is occurring vis-a-vis what this means for the Transsexual community. Many Transsexual leaders and especially more so now, are speaking up to announce that while we accept the Transgender umbrella term for Political purposes, we nevertheless strongly believe that the Transsexual identity is being relegated to the back of the bus. Many of us are posting to list servs announcing our passion around this issue. For those that seem to think debate must stop due to your beliefs that this is divisiveness, let me state that you re-consider in my opinion and refrain from attempting to silence those who differ from you. There is a growing political strategy once again being led by transsexual leaders to again affirm our place in this Transgender umbrella movement. Please be reminded that Historically our movement was led by Transsexuals who built brides into the gay, lesbian, medical and allies communities. To disrespect our historical past serves no purpose. The fight locally of affirming our Transsexual identity is being led by transformed and transsexual women. These individuals include Aiyana Maracle, Velvet Steel, Kimberly Nixon and Jamie Lee Hamilton. Of course it is expected that many transformed transsexual Males are about to announce their support. They too will join as leaders in this distinct society. So in closing, just a reminder when speaking of our movements please use both terms of Transsexual and Transgender for identification purposes. To only use one terminology such as Transgender renders the other one obsolete. Many thanks for taking the time to read this. If you need any further clarification please feel free to contact any of the above mentioned. Sincerely Jamie Lee Hamilton From christoff at resist.ca Fri Mar 26 12:02:53 2004 From: christoff at resist.ca (Stefan Christoff) Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 12:02:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [news] {The Gazette} Immigration conference gets wake-up call on refugees Message-ID: Immigration conference gets wake-up call on refugees Protesters disrupt panel to decry Canadian policies, which they suggest exclude foreigners JEFF HEINRICH The Gazette Friday, March 26, 2004 http://www.canada.com/montreal/news/story.asp?id=44E1B83E-E770-4AB9-B2C4-71F193FAD4D2 The wife of deported Algerian activist Mohamed Cherfi and a handful of other refugee advocates disrupted a national conference of 600 immigration specialists in Montreal yesterday. "He's not a criminal, he's an asylum seeker," Louise Boivin said of her husband, seized March 5 from a Quebec City church and deported to the U.S. "I speak to him every night in prison (in Buffalo, N.Y.). He's someone who needs protection, and democracy requires that his rights be respected." Boivin and her supporters shouted their protest at the launch of the seventh annual Metropolis conference, a four-day gathering of researchers, community workers and government experts on immigration. Held at the Sheraton Hotel, the conference is funded mainly by the federal and provincial governments. The protesters claimed the government's immigration and refugee policies are designed to exclude foreigners, not welcome them. In fact, next to Australia, Canada has the highest percentage of of foreign-born people of any country in the world, said Marc Renaud, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Eighteen per cent of Canada's 32 million people are foreign-born, he noted. In Toronto, for example, the country's largest city, 44 per cent of residents are first-generation immigrants. Getting in as media representatives and student participants, the protesters at 4 p.m. unfurled a black banner that read "Bring Mohamed Cherfi home," and had a 10-minute shouting match with the moderator before they left peacefully. "They really didn't need to do what they did," commented Stephan ReicRating 2 old, head of the Montreal-based Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes refugiees et immigrantes, who was on the panel at the front of the hotel's ballroom when the protesters struck. "They were really preaching to the converted." Warned there would be demonstrators, federal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro and her Quebec counterpart Michelle Courchesne did not attend the launch as planned. Courchesne did meet an international delegation of 40 youth leaders for an hour before the event, but left before the opening plenary, a spokesperson said. After the protesters left, Sgro's deputy minister, Alfred MacLeod, told the audience the surprise outburst had given the conference "a sense of reality and a sense of urgency." Asked afterward to comment on Cherfi's case, he refused. "The individual in question is no longer in the country," MacLeod said. "No comment." For more on the conference, consult the Metropolis Web site at http://im.metropolis.net/ jheinrich at thegazette.canwest.com ------------------- From sharai at resist.ca Mon Mar 29 16:04:34 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 18:04:34 -0600 Subject: [news] REMINDER/change the code meeting Message-ID: <4068B992.6080007@resist.ca> Hi All!! Just a reminder of our founding meeting of Change the Code on Thursday April 1st from 7pm-9pm at the Ray-Cam Centre located at 920 East Hastings. The mtg will take place in the Seniors Room. I along with Fern Jeffries look forward to seeing you at this important meeting. Cheer Jamie Lee From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 10:17:10 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:17:10 -0000 Subject: [news] Canadian Budget Deciphered Message-ID: <20040331181711.9199.qmail@resist.ca> The Federal Budget time has come and gone once again. In its wake are a host of questions and a country feeling left out in the proverbial cold. Paul Martin's first budget as Prime Minister is a real loser and to quote Stephen Harper - "I wouldn't run on that". Something is amiss when I agree with Harper on just about anything. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/26/63838/3994 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 10:17:10 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:17:10 -0000 Subject: [news] Global security firms fill in as private armies Message-ID: <20040331181710.9198.qmail@resist.ca> The boom in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg for the $100 billion-a- year industry, which experts say has been the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the past decade. From oil companies in the African hinterland to heads of state in Haiti and Afghanistan to international aid agencies in hotspots around the world, the difference between life and death is decided by private guns for hire. Also, major security firms are quietly lobbying the U.S. government and the United Nations to privatize peacekeeping operations. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/28/184116/788 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 10:17:10 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:17:10 -0000 Subject: [news] Demonstration Against Racist Immigration Jail Message-ID: <20040331181711.9201.qmail@resist.ca> http://www.ocap.ca/immigration/inn.html On the morning of Saturday March 27, at 11am over 150 protestors gathered at Dufferin Grove Park before taking buses to 385 Rexdale Boulevard, the site of the new Heritage Inn detention centre for Immigrants and Refugees. The Heritage Inn, the successor of the infamous Celebrity Inn, is an enlarged and more heavily fortified jail intended to detain immigrants and refugees for minor immigration violations. The jail will be run by the Corbel Management Group, a private security company. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/30/21343/0357 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 10:17:10 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:17:10 -0000 Subject: [news] Native groups get status at committee table: Five groups recognized Message-ID: <20040331181711.9204.qmail@resist.ca> by Chris Lackner and Bill Curry - National Post - March 29, 2004 OTTAWA -- Aboriginal leaders will now sit side by side with MPs in the study of legislation after being made permanent members of the Commons aboriginal affairs committee through a motion passed last week behind closed doors. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/30/202655/566 From news at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 10:17:10 2004 From: news at resist.ca (Resist!ca) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:17:10 -0000 Subject: [news] BC Coalition of Women's Centres Press Release Message-ID: <20040331181711.9206.qmail@resist.ca> For Immediate Release - March 30th 2004 BC Coalition of Women's Centres Media Advisory March 31st Marks the End of An Era for BC Women BC- Women's Centres throughout the province will be closing tomorrow and engaging in information events in their communities. March 31 st is the last day of provincial government funding to Centres, marking the end of an era for BC women. URL: http://resist.ca/story/2004/3/30/202056/966 From christoff at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 14:00:02 2004 From: christoff at resist.ca (Stefan Christoff) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 14:00:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [news] Message from Concerned Kanehsatake Community Members Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 14:49:19 -0500 From: kanehsatake Indy Media PRESS RELEASE RE: SITUATION IN KANEHSATAKE!!! James Gabriel and four of his fellow councilors from the Mohawk Council of Kanehsatake , the Solicitor General's Office, and the Minister of Public Security Jacques Changnon are forcing upon the residents and community of Kanehsatake a un-ratified policing agreement. The community of Kanehsatake has steadfastly opposed this forced and illegal agreement, which endangers the lives of community members. On January 12 2004 James Gabriel with the assistance of the Solicitor General of Canada, Wayne Easter, attempted an invasion and coup of Kanehsatake. It was made clear that the community of Kanehsatake wanted to be a full partner in the maintenance and operation of its police force, this right was denied and is continuing to be denied by the aforementioned parties. At this moment the Canadian Federal and Quebec Provincial governments as well as James Gabriel are threatening to enter and take over the community of Kanehsatake with their newly created police force. This Police force does not have the support of the community and the community is completely opposed to its involvement in their affairs. In the past two members of this force had been involved in acts of brutality, which left one man in a wheel chair and the remainder of the community in fear (see Justice for Joe David by the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality). Kanehsatake are feeling tense and the situation is volatile. Despite repeated efforts on the part of community members, the Kanehsatake Police Commission, and the Kahnawake Peace Keepers to de-escalate the situation the Canadian and Quebec governments and their provocateur James Gabriel are continuing to push the community into a corner. The situation is extremely volatile and dangerous. The Kahnawake Peace Keepers are on the verge of leaving Kanehsatake and the community will be vulnerable to the oppressive style of policing that Gabriel is infamous for in this community. The voices of Kanehsatake Community members must be heard and heeded in order to peacefully resolve this crisis. Concerned Kanehsatake Community Members Information: Contact - 514 261 3256 / kanehsatake_indymedia at sympatico.ca From sharai at resist.ca Wed Mar 31 15:28:45 2004 From: sharai at resist.ca (sharai) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:28:45 -0600 Subject: [news] What Is Change The Code/FYI Message-ID: <406B542D.8040402@resist.ca> Essentially Change the Code is a National Coalition and strategy lobbying for changes to prostitution laws which criminalize sex workers and their places of work.Moreover the police have historically used the bawdy house section to selectively enforce the law against those they deem top be committing Immoral Acts. We are hoping to reach consensus on striking down S 213 - the communicating law which police law enforcement use routinely against Sex Trade workers. As well we want S 210 struck down as the police again routinely use this to discriminate against marginalized individuals and groups. We will also look at the Pimping law as it can be used to selectively target spousal partners of those working in the trade. Again we think a new law should be written into the Code which makes it illegal to traffic in Women and Male to be used as sex workers. This Trafficking law we think is a much stronger one then the current pimping law. Also we Want the Sexual Exploitation of youth to be put in a different category because this is not Prostitution!! Just a reminder of our founding meeting of Change the Code on Thursday April 1st from 7pm-9pm at the Ray-Cam Centre located at 920 East Hastings. The mtg will take place in the Seniors Room. I along with Fern Jeffries look forward to seeing you at this important meeting.