From ldxar1 at tesco.net Sat Dec 1 13:16:50 2007 From: ldxar1 at tesco.net (Andy) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 21:16:50 -0000 Subject: [Onthebarricades] Antifascist protests in Spain, Czech Rep Message-ID: <016001c8345f$7d8959b0$0802a8c0@andy1> Video of antifa vs riot cops as Nazi David Duke spreads anti-Semitic bile in Spain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQyoOsGW6VU * Protests as Nazi visits Spain * Antifa clash with fascists in Czech Rep * Antifa unrest after Nazi murders antifa in Spain http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr012=tr2epy52k1.app5b&page=NewsArticle&id=7710&news_iv_ctrl=1261 Klansman David Duke not welcome in Spain Thursday, November 29, 2007 By: Silvio Rodrigues In brief Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and vicious racist David Duke sparked outrage in Spain while touring to promote his anti-Semitic new book, "Jewish supremacism: my awakening to the Jewish question." His tour was an affront to all workers. In a racist attack against immigrants coming to Spain, Duke remarked that "Spain is suffering the greatest threat to its people's heritage and freedom since the Moorish invasion of 711." A group of intellectuals, journalists and politicians filed a complaint against Duke before the Catalan High Court, citing the Spanish Criminal Code's ban against actions that could "incite discrimination, hatred or violence against groups or associations for racist, anti-Semitic reasons." Duke's hosts included the Center for National Democratic Studies and the Spanish far-right political parties National Alliance and National Democracy. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385600.html This evening news came in, that same time in Spain, Madrid, a nazi stabbed an antifascist with a knife in the metro. The young antifascust died. Protest marches all over Spain tonight. VIDEOS http://aktualne.centrum.cz/video/?id=113297 http://www.nova.cz/zpravy/?83c=%7Edomaci%7E&83e=DO22748&ex22748=video-kristalova-noc-ostre-bitky-osetreno-sest-lidi balmrx Additions antifa did good 12.11.2007 10:01 if nazis want to celebrate the holocaust by marching through the jewish part of town, then they can only expect to meet some resistance. If nazis want to fire gas pellets into crowds of anti racist protesters then I guess they can only expect a good kicking... and that's what they got. There are pictures of them on the front page of the Czech national newspapers hiding behind police under the headline "The neo-nazis came to town, and got taught a lesson" German antifa travelled down to help us out. The Jewish population went out on the streets and wore stars of David with pride. It pissed it down all day, the police held back most of the antifa in cordons or bloacked them in side streets... This was a brilliant day for people who want to defend diversity in Prague and all of the region. I'd like to see them try and hold this march next year.... sinisterpenguin http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20071115133903498 Riots After 16 Year Old Anti-Fascist Murdered in Spain Thursday, November 15 2007 @ 01:39 PM PST Contributed by: Anonymous Views: 612 Madrid, Spain - Carlos Javier, a 16-year-old anti-fascist activist, was stabbed and killed by a 24-year-old off-duty soldier, identified as Josu? Est?banez de la Hija with neo-Nazi affiliations. Javier was riding a metro train with a group of anti-fascists reported to be Redskins on their way to a pro-immigration protest on Sunday. While stopped at Legazpi station they spotted Est?banez who was wearing a t-shirt with a neo-Nazi symbol. Est?banez attacked two of the anti-fascists with a knife, wounding one 19-year-old Jonathan M. Alexander in the lung and Javier fatally in the heart. Fighting ensued and a fire extinguisher was smashed filling the train car with particles. The others in the group of antifascists chased the bastard, and beat him within an inch of his life, until the police arrived and attacked the antifascists. The nazi is (was) a military person, in the spanish army. He is now in a critical condition in hospital, where hopefully he will die soon. Police have obtained a copy of detailed surveillance footage from the train and have released a summary of it's contents. Alexander is expected to recover from his wound and a demonstration in memory of Javier has been scheduled for Saturday November 17th. Also, a guy in the antifascist lot was hurt when police shot him in the eye with a rubber bullet. There?s been demos all over the state, many ending in riots, which in turn have seen some arrested and wounded by the police. 20th of November is also approaching, which is the traditional show down between the scum and the antifascists. That's the anniversary of Franco?s death, when the fascists always call for a demo that every year is swiftly countered. So there will be more violence to come..... More at: http://bombsandshields.blogspot.com/ Photos: http://klinamen.org/article3360.html http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/11/368425.shtml?discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: extlink.gif Type: image/gif Size: 73 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: inews_ara.gif Type: image/gif Size: 4100 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ldxar1 at tesco.net Mon Dec 3 07:15:53 2007 From: ldxar1 at tesco.net (Andy) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:15:53 -0000 Subject: [Onthebarricades] ITALY: Biggest transport strike in years Message-ID: <01aa01c835bf$654697d0$0802a8c0@andy1> Largest transport strike in 25yrs hits Italy Agence France-Presse . Rome Italy's largest transport strike in 25 years cancelled hundreds of flights and brought trains, buses and ferries to a halt on Friday, creating frustration on the country's commuter-clogged roads. At midday, nearly 80 per cent of employees had participated in the strike, according to union estimates. The country's funeral and emergency services workers were among those taking part. 'Even being buried on Friday will be difficult,' La Repubblica newspaper wrote. Italian papers pointed out it was the first strike in a quarter-century to hit so many forms of transport simultaneously. Italy's main unions called the strike over what workers say is insufficient financing for the transport sector in the government's 2008 budget, which is to be approved before the end of the year. Italians were forced to take their cars to work, creating heavy traffic on highways. The situation was particularly hectic in Milan, Italy's financial capital, where the city's three metro lines were closed. 'I did my rounds to distribute newspapers and everything was blocked. It was terrible,' said Stefano, who has a newsstand in the city's centre. More than 160 flights in and out of Rome's main airport were cancelled, the airport news agency Telenews said. Pilots, other flight crew and ground staff joined the strike and flights by Alitalia, the Italian state airline, accounted for 109 of the 162 cancellations recorded, the agency said. At Milan's Malpensa airport, 151 arrival and departure flights were cancelled, while 54 were cancelled at the city's Linate airport. Strike hours varied according to sector and city, with regulations requiring a minimum level of service available for peak hours. The stoppage was called to protest transport sector spending under the government's 2008 budget and to demand larger commitments from the state over a financial crisis engulfing Alitalia, as well as for the national railroad company. Taxis had been virtually unavailable in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday, with drivers objecting to Mayor Walter Veltroni's decision to increase the number of taxi licences. But they suspended their strike on Friday, offering some relief to commuters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ldxar1 at tesco.net Mon Dec 3 15:35:32 2007 From: ldxar1 at tesco.net (Andy) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:35:32 -0000 Subject: [Onthebarricades] NIGERIA: Delta insurgents impede capitalist extraction Message-ID: <004501c83605$32971e40$0802a8c0@andy1> Nigeria: imperialist plunder impeded http://www.rcgfrfi.plus.com/frfipages/199/199_nig.html Nigeria is Africa's largest crude oil exporter, shipping 42% of its oil to the US and 19% to the EU in 2006, and overtaking Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to become the third largest oil exporter to the US. However, exports from Nigeria have been cut by up to 40% since 2003 through the actions of armed groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) which are demanding greater benefits from and local control of the wealth generated by oil production, and insisting that foreign oil companies leave the country. Over this period, thousands of foreign oil workers have fled, and more than 150 have been taken hostage in the last eight months alone. Although the origins of MEND lie in the local corrupt Niger Delta elites, there are signs that the organisation has been moving in a more progressive direction, breaking its links with corrupt politicians it has previously defended. In July 2007, MEND was quoted as saying that 'companies are moving away from the Niger-Delta region...The same companies...have been there for nearly 50 years and what have we got from their presence? Pollution and menial jobs for the people of the Delta. They will not be missed. As long as there is oil, I assure you, they will return at our terms... The temporary exit of these dubious oil companies is a very small price to pay for freedom.' The southern Niger Delta region is where all of Nigeria's oil is extracted, generating 95% of government revenues. MEND is a loose coalition of militants who operate with sections of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), the Martyr's Brigade and others. From 1999, non-violent organisations, such as the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), emerged to lead the 'struggle for self-determination' in the Delta. However, the IYC split into factions following a leadership crisis. Asari Dokubo, one of its leaders, went on to establish the NDPVF, denouncing the peaceful methods of the IYC as ineffective. Although Asari and the NDPVF declared 'war' on the Nigerian government in October 2004, they promised not to damage the oil installations themselves, and subsequently agreed to disarm and were paid up to N400m ($3.2m). Asari was at one time a hired thug for Peter Odili, ex-governor of oil-rich Rivers State in the Delta who embezzled N200bn ($1.6bn) in state oil revenues. Asari was later arrested and imprisoned on treason charges for 21 months. In February 2006, the government bombed villages in the western Delta killing several civilians, a trigger for the formation of MEND. At present MEND is directing its attacks at imperialism's main representatives in Nigeria - the oil companies. Sophisticated attacks on heavily guarded facilities since February 2006 in the Western Delta region have forced the Warri and Kaduna refineries to shut down. Oil multinationals have been compelled to pull out staff and stop production in many parts of the region. Nigeria has lost an estimated $16bn in export revenues between December 2005 and April 2007. In July 2007, Anglo-Dutch multinational Shell claimed to have lost $1.3bn a month or $23bn since early 2006. Alongside MEND's actions, state-supported gangs and militias have ravaged large parts of the region with killings, rapes, extortion and shootings, as they act on behalf of local factions of the bourgeoisie. What's behind the militancy? The growth of organised resistance has been sparked by the plunder of the Delta region's massive oil resources by imperialist companies such as Shell, the associated pollution, and the rampant corruption of both local and national political leaders. Between June 1999 and April 2007, oil revenues amounting to N2.4 trillion ($19.2bn) have been embezzled by the southern leaders, and most Nigerians, especially in the Niger Delta, live in squalor, with no access to clean drinking water, electricity, schools, paved roads, medicines or even shelter. In 1999, 2003 and again in 2007, following decades of direct military rule, politicians in the Niger Delta recruited and armed unemployed youth to intimidate their political opponents and rig the elections. Oil company executives provided cash and logistics for their favoured candidates. According to former vice president Atiku Abubakar, there was an agreement in 1999 that the presidency would 'rotate' after eight years between 'North' and 'South'. When former president Olusegun Obasanjo broke this to run for a third term after 2007, sections of Nigeria's ruling class descended into open warfare with Obasanjo and Abubakar and their supporters accusing each other of 'corruption'. One of MEND's demands was for the release of two corrupt local leaders, Diepreye Alamieyesiegha and Mujahid Asari Dokubo. Alamieyesiegha is the former governor of oil-rich Bayelsa State, who looted over $6m into British, US and French banks. He is an ally of vice president Abubakar and so opposed Obasanjo's third term agenda and was subsequently gaoled for 12 years for embezzlement. Both he and Asari were released by July 2007. In a further sign of its political development, MEND has broken its links with Asari, describing him as a 'charlatan', and now describe the release of the politicians as 'peripheral to the main issue'. There are seemingly different trends involved in MEND some of which are responding to pressures from below and are beginning to articulate the demands of the poorest sections of the Delta. Protests and occupations of oil platforms by unarmed women and villagers receive little media attention but have become daily occurrences. Meanwhile the Nigerian government has attempted to maintain 'economic activity' in the Niger Delta, that is, the continued plunder of the oil resources together with a massive privatisation of state assets. The Delta is permanently under heavy military occupation with police, army, navy and State Security Service (SSS) officers guarding oil facilities. The Nigerian security forces also use rape to intimidate communities in the Niger Delta and as a means of torture to extract confessions from suspects in custody. The Nigerian government plans to import $2bn worth of arms to crush the militants. Imperialists arm Nigerian military Shell secretly approached the US military in March 2006 to see if it could intervene in the Delta to 'protect our investments'. The Gulf of Guinea Energy Security Strategy (GGESS) was established in 2005 by the US and Britain, with Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Switzerland as 'observers'. In December 2005 the US announced it would install a navy maritime spy facility in the island of Sao Tome and Principe. US and British instructors have also been training Nigerian military personnel at the Jaji Military College in Kaduna, northern Nigeria. On 30 August 2006, the US and Britain agreed to provide assistance and a network of radar and communication facilities to assist Nigerian security forces in monitoring territorial waters. With an era of perpetual war predicted in the Middle East and oil and gas industries being nationalised in Latin America, the imperialists have been searching for diversity of supply, and Africa is being resurrected as a major alternative source. Hence the crocodile tears over Darfur - a prelude to invading Sudan. The US has set up an African Command, Africom, a major military presence in the Gulf of Guinea, to secure access to West African energy reserves. This will begin operations in October 2007. Whilst it is not yet clear what final political direction MEND and its allies will take, anti-imperialists must support their demand for an end of imperialist plunder of Nigeria's oil resources. Charles Chinweizu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ldxar1 at tesco.net Sun Dec 9 20:05:54 2007 From: ldxar1 at tesco.net (Andy) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:05:54 -0000 Subject: [Onthebarricades] Global unrest: Senegal, Assam, Balochistan, Egypt Message-ID: <028d01c83ae1$fa239e30$0802a8c0@andy1> * SENEGAL: Attack on street traders sparks mass unrest * INDIA: Unrest by adivasis in Assam * BALOCHISTAN: Killing sparks strike, blockades * EGYPT: Victory for textile workers' strike Concessions fail to end riots over ban on Dakar's street hawkers Agencies in Dakar Friday November 23, 2007 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2215700,00.html Senegal's worst riots for almost two decades persisted into a second day yesterday, despite government efforts to defuse a crisis triggered by a decision to ban hawkers from the streets of the capital, Dakar. Market stalls remained shuttered while police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters, witnesses said. The unrest was nonetheless less destructive than the violence which convulsed the city the previous day after President Abdoulaye Wade's government ordered police to evict thousands of street vendors whose stalls line the city centre's pot-holed streets. "Enough's enough," said the red-banner headline of Le Populaire newspaper. "Dakar joins the evicted street vendors to show their discontent with the government." The disenchantment began to spread last week when the security forces began clearing the capital's intersections of beggars and hawkers under a presidential decree aimed at bringing some order to the city's clogged streets. On Wednesday groups of men protesting at the ban faced off against riot police, throwing stones at the officers. The police replied with tear gas and arrested dozens. Police were also seen beating some men with batons as they quelled the protest and shut down a union march that the government had prohibited because of the unrest. Two buildings burned, along with cars caught in the melee. The unrest was extremely rare for a west African city often held up as an example of peace and stability in the region. It was aggravated by wider discontent over unemployment, rising prices of rice and bread, and a perception that the government is building luxury hotels and roads while ignoring the poor. The government has indicated that it will soften the presidential decree. The prime minister, Hadjibou Soumare, who met representatives of the traders late on Wednesday, agreed to keep certain central streets open to vendors at the weekend, and to set aside a special area for them during the rest of the week, said Maimouna Sourang Ndir, the minister of life quality and leisure. Local aid groups estimate that there are between 50,000 and 100,000 unlicensed vendors and beggars in the capital. Young men sell everything from ironing boards to electronics in the streets. Dakar's legions of jobless young are also losing patience. "Wade pledged to help the youth if he got a second mandate," one of them, Ibrahim Mbemgue, 28, told Reuters. "He betrayed the people." Behind the Adivasi unrest in Assam M.S. Prabhakara http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/03/stories/2007120354911100.htm The continuing violence in Assam over the last few days, in particular the wanton vandalism and the crude and vigilantist retaliation that took place in and around Dispur in Guwahati on November 24, has rightly attracted wide and critical notice. However, any exclusive concern with the violent events of that Saturday, in particular the voyeuristic focus by the visual media on the shameful attack on the person and personal dignity of a young woman by the mob that has been unreservedly condemned by the people of the State, may obscure the real issues: the demand of the Adivasis for classification as a Scheduled Tribe, and the complex factors that inform the resistance to that and similar demands. The Adivasi, a nomenclature now adopted by the approximately 20 million strong Tea Garden Labour and ex-Tea Garden Labour community, is not the only community in Assam seeking classification as a Scheduled Tribe. Five other communities (the Tai-Ahom, the Moran, the Motok, the Chutia and the Koch-Rajbongshi), all presently classified as Other Backward Classes (OBC), have also for long been pressing for recognition as Scheduled Tribes. The first four live predominantly in the districts of Upper Assam while the Koch- Rajbongshi live predominantly in western Assam, sharing broadly the same physical (and political) space as the Bodos, the most numerous of the tribal communities of the State. The Adivasis are, for the most part, settled in the vicinity of the tea gardens. Contrary to the general impression, the clashes do not bespeak any deeply ingrained hostility between `tribal people and non-tribal people,' or between the tribal people and caste Hindus, in Assam - a convenient distinction between supposedly irreconcilable categories made in much of the analysis of the so-called ethnic clashes in Assam and the north-eastern region. The Adivasis, though aspiring for recognition as a tribal community and indeed historically belonging to authentic tribal stock, are at present not recognised as a tribal community. It is only in popular usage that they are referred to as Tea Garden Tribes and ex-Tea Garden Tribes. Strictly speaking, their fight is not so much for their recognition as a tribal community as for the restoration of that tribal identity to which they believe they are entitled, being the descendants of various tribal communities of Central India who, over a century-and- a-half ago, went or were indentured to work in the gardens of eastern India. What they are fighting for is therefore the restoration of their legitimate cultural patrimony. Why and how did the descendants of the tribal people whose ancestors were brought to Assam from other parts of India cease to be tribal people in their present environment? The answer lies in the peculiar rules that determine such recognition, according to which a person's tribal identity is irrevocably and forever linked to her or his place of origin - in the present instance, the persons' ancestral origins. For instance, the progeny of a Munda, a recognised tribal community in Jharkhand and other contiguous States, one of the 96 communities listed under the category, Tea Garden Labourers, Tea Garden Tribes, Ex-Tea Garden Labourers and Ex-Tea Garden Tribes in the official `Central List of Backward Classes, Assam,' who was taken to Assam to work in the tea gardens over a century-and-a-half ago has lost his tribal identity, though were such a person to return to his (now notional) ancestral place, he would regain his tribal identity. Such absurd rules and requirements do not however obtain in other cases of migration. A non-tribal person moving, say, from Karnataka to Assam continues to retain all the socio-cultural coordinates of his or her identity. Indeed such absurd anomalies govern even the movement of tribal communities within Assam, and in the States that were carved out of colonial Assam after independence. For instance, the 23 recognised tribal communities in Assam are broadly identified under two categories: the Hill Tribes, that is, the 14 communities recognised as `tribal' in the `hill areas,' now comprising the two Autonomous Districts of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills; and the Plains Tribes, that is, the 9 communities recognised as `tribal' in rest of Assam, supposedly all `Plain'. Neither of the locational identifications is accurate, indeed cannot be accurate, given the facts of geography but that is the least of the problems. More materially, neither of these two categories carries its tribal identity when it moves out of its `designated areas.' Thus, Census figures for Guwahati city, very much in the Plains of Assam, which has people from every part of the country and also from foreign parts, do not enumerate a single person belonging to any of the 14 `Hill Tribe' categories. Indeed, every Plains district enumerates zero population of Hill Tribes. Similarly, the Census figures for the two Hill districts do not enumerate a single person from any of the nine designated `Plains Tribe' categories. The reality is different; however such personas living outside their allotted spaces are for official purposes simply made `un-persons'. While the Adivasis' case for the restoration of their primordial tribal status seems strongest, the issues and demands underlying the struggle of the five other communities seeking recognition as Scheduled Tribes are equally complex. The Koch-Rajbongshi, also known as Sarania Kachari, historically part of the Bodo Kachari stock, lost their tribal identity over a long period going back to the days before the colonial conquest of Assam through a complex process of conversion and acculturation into the Vaishnavite variety of Assamese Hinduism. Such advantages as the conversion may have brought have lost their relevance in post-independence India where, increasingly, the tribal identity is getting to be perversely privileged by non-tribal communities. Corresponding urges and expectations no doubt drive the demands of the other communities seeking to be classified as Scheduled Tribes. The State government says it is not opposed to conceding the demands but has pleaded its inability in view of the existing rules. There are indications that these rigidities may be relaxed, at least in respect of the Adivasi demand. However, if the Adivasi demand is conceded, the demands of other communities too will have to be eventually conceded. The issue also has national implications, in the context of the contradictions highlighted in the presently dormant Gujjar agitation for classification as ST. The more immediate opposition in Assam to the extension of ST recognition to the six communities is however likely to come from the presently recognised Scheduled Tribes. The estimated 20 lakh Adivasis constitute about 60 per cent of the total ST population of the State which, according to the 2001 Census, was 3,308,570. The addition of such a large population to the present ST pool will undoubtedly affect existing allocations in areas such as reservation of seats in legislative structures, higher education and jobs. Put simply, such identity struggles carry a cost, and a price. (For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Manufacturing Identities? Frontline, 7 October 2005; In the Name of Tribal Identities, Frontline, 2 December 2005; and Separatist Strains, Frontline, 1 June 2007.) Balach Marri's killing : Balochistan shuts down http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\11\23\story_23-11- 2007_pg1_5 QUETTA: More than a hundred protesters were arrested across Balochistan on Thursday as the province observed a complete shutter- down strike against the killing of Nawabzada Balach Marri, a Baloch nationalist leader. Police rounded up around fifty protesters in Quetta, most of whom had come from Sariab, where Balochis are in a majority. Fifteen protesters were arrested in Gwadar, where the Balochistan National Party, National Party and the Baloch Students Organisation had called for a complete strike. Ten leaders of the National Party were detained in Panjgur district where police used tear gas and baton- charged the protesters. Dozens of protesters were arrested from other provincial districts including Khuzdar, Dalbandin, Turbat, Sibi, Panjgur, Mustung, Noshaki. Life came to a stand still in these districts while protests were largely peaceful. "A state of red alert has been declared in Quetta with 4,000 police personnel and the Frontier Corps (FC) deployed at different locations. Around 70 mobile teams will continue to patrol Quetta," the city's police chief Mohammad Akbar said. In Quetta, a complete shutter down strike was observed in the Baloch- populated areas where protesters burnt two government vehicles and pelted stones at official buildings. Shops, banks and business centres remained closed. The city government had announced the closure of all educational institutes on Thursday. However, life continued as usual in the rest of the city. Supporters of Balach Marri also blocked many roads, including the RCD and Mekran Highways for many hours. Meanwhile, three bomb blasts took place in Hub, Balochistan's industrial town, and Sibi, suspending power supply to many parts of Hub township and damaging the local post office. staff report 'The struggle is one' The Mehala Al-Kubra textile workers are providing a model for protest, and not just in the public, industrial sector, writes Faiza Rady http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/870/eg5.htm In Mehala Al-Kubra, a sprawling industrial town in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, the tension is still palpable following last month's strike at the state-owned Misr Spinning and Weaving Company. On Sunday, the workers' coordinating committee distributed a leaflet in which they accused the plant's newly appointed union leader, Masaad Al-Fiqi, of catering to the president of the General Union of Textile Workers, Said El-Gohary, instead of representing labour interests. The workers, whose basic pay is supplemented by a complex system of monthly and yearly bonuses, are demanding a 22 per cent increase on incentive payments. "Twenty-two per cent may sound like a huge increase but it really isn't much," says labour activist and veteran textile worker Al- Sayed Habib. "The highest increase in incentives amounts to LE150 ($45) and we've only had three such increases over the past 18 years." Average take-home pay at the plant, including bonuses and incentives, is about LE500 ($75) -- which barely places the workers above the two dollar-a-day poverty line. Younger workers, and those recently hired, receive below average wages. They are paid LE300 or less, which pushes them below the poverty line. Egyptian textile workers are at the bottom of the regional salary scale. According to the American Chamber of Commerce they earn 92 per cent less than workers doing similar jobs in Israel, 81 per cent less than in Turkey and 65 per cent less than in Tunisia. Inflation has eaten away at spending power that was already severely limited. Official sources say inflation is running at 12 per cent though, as Egyptian labour historian Joel Beinin points out, the real figure is likely to be much higher. The price of vegetables has increased by 37.6 per cent while the cost of many basic pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, has doubled. "Most of us cannot survive on our salaries. The cheapest flats now rent for LE300. How can we survive if we have to pay our entire salary on rent?" asks Faysal Nakousha. "Many work at a second job after their eight-hour shifts. They end up working an average of 12 hours a day, sometimes more. We don't see our families; our lives are reduced to a mad race around the clock. And we still barely keep our heads above water. For me the worst feeling about living in such dire poverty is to know that my kids are being deprived of many things." Habib and his comrades see their protest action as part of a long- term process. "Our strike hasn't yet been settled. We gave the government a one-month grace period to make payments and comply with our other demands. This is going to be a long struggle," he says. The workers have accused CEO Mahmoud El-Gibali and his assistants of embezzling company funds and squandering money on personal trips abroad and are demanding they be dismissed. The allegations are still being investigated. In addition to bread and butter issues the workers have formulated other, more political demands, the most important of which is the call for independent labour unions. In March, 14,000 Mehala workers signed a petition to impeach their local union committee and denounce the General Confederation of Trade Unions (GCTU) as an arm of the government. Their rejection of the GCTU has had a domino effect on workers' protests nationwide. The 7 December Movement -- Workers for Change (the name of the coalition of workers refers to an earlier strike by the Mehala workers) has issued a statement saying that "one of our first goals is not to recognise official representatives like the workers' unions and syndicates which have clearly demonstrated they do not represent workers' demands". Workers for Change are connected to the protest movement Kifaya and view themselves as part of the political opposition to the current regime. In addition to rejecting the state-controlled GCTU, they are directly contesting the government's neo-liberal policies by protesting against the drive to privatise the public sector -- a demand every public sector workers' strike has picked up. "Important elements among the Mehala strikers are now framing their struggle as a political fight with national implications," says Beinin. "They are directly challenging the economic policies of the regime." And they are building a movement. "I have just returned from a meeting with a textile workers' committee from the Shebin Al-Kom plant," says Mohamed El-Attar, a prominent Mehala strike leader. "We are coordinating with other workers and plan to meet with them on a regular monthly basis because we're all in this together. Whether we're industrial workers or white collar workers, in the public or in the private sector, the struggle is one." An activist with the Centre of Workers' and Trade Union Services (CWTUS), an advocacy NGO that the government closed last April, Attar believes that Egyptian workers have succeeded in launching a nationwide intifada since the Mehala textile workers' first work stoppage on 7 December, 2006. They decided to strike after the state- owned company failed to fulfil Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's pledge to increase public sector workers' annual bonuses from LE100 ($18) to the equivalent of two months' pay. Unwilling to risk a protracted showdown with a labour force of 27,000 the government backed down and came to the negotiating table. The strikers and Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin reached a compromise: the workers accepted a bonus equal to 45- days-pay instead of the promised two months, and the minister pledged to pay them a ten per cent profit-share if the company made more than LE60 million in profits. The Mehala workers' December strike established a successful model of protest triggering a wave of industrial actions across Egypt, including the ongoing tax collectors' protest that has mobilised some 55,000 workers. Though initiated by industrial workers, the labour intifada has quickly gained momentum within both the public and private sectors. The Land Centre, an agricultural workers' watchdog, reports a total of 283 industrial actions during the first half of 2007. In the wake of the December strike in Mehala textile workers from mills in Shebin Al-Kom and Kafr Al-Dawwar went on strike over similar demands. Railway and metro workers, teachers and tax collectors have all followed suit. The Mehala workers have also pointed to an alternative to the local union committees of the GCTU. "Among the Mehala workers' most important gains is that they forced the confederation to accept their committee as a negotiating partner in lieu of the local union committee," says labour journalist and CWTUS activist Adel Zakaria. "It is incredible, we actually received an invitation from Said El- Gohary, head of the General Trade Union of Textile Workers, to attend union meetings at the headquarters in Cairo," says Attar. "They recognise us as the Mehala workers' committee because they know they can't negotiate without us. This is a victory." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ldxar1 at tesco.net Mon Dec 24 15:28:05 2007 From: ldxar1 at tesco.net (Andy) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:28:05 -0000 Subject: [Onthebarricades] COLOMBIA: State attacks ongoing indigenous protest Message-ID: <043d01c84684$a4659fd0$0802a8c0@andy1> Colombian indigenous people send an SOS from Cauca Since the 13th of Decemeber 2007, 64 people have participated in this protest action. The treatment of the Indigenous people of Colombia by successive governments has been complex and unfair. Recently announcements from the Organization of Antioquia (OIA) indicate that government's future projects threaten the survival and livelihood of a significant proportion of the local indigenous people. 22 projects in South America using an Integrative Infrastructure are going to be developed in indigenous territories. More than 80 oil exploitations are on 30 indigenous territories. The canalization of Meta and Putumayo Rivers will adversely affect 37 Indigenous Nations. Oil palm plantations will affect five millions hectares of claimed land and 5 dams will inundate ancestral lands. With the New Law of Rural Development (Law 1152 of 2007), the Colombian Government and the Congress have abolished the holding of legal title by the indigenous people of the Pacific region and other municipalities. Yet the Government have not intervened on the four million hectares that drug traffickers and big landowners (supported by paramilitaries) have illegally taken by violent means from the indigenous peoples, the Afro-Colombian and the peasant people. With other newly created Laws in Mines and Forestry, the Colombian Government is about to abolish indigenous rights to their lands that were recognized in national and international treaties (the 1991 Constitutional Reform and the169 Agreement of the ILO (International Labour Organisation). In 1991, the Colombian army killed 23 people at "El Nilo" Farm. In 1998, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights adjudged the Colombian government's responsibility, and ruled that 10,000 hectares be handed back to the original indigenous people of Cauca. Nothing has been done to date to redeem this land. That is why the indigenous people have made a call to free Mother Earth during the last few weeks. CRIC has sent an SOS informing how Colombian army and police forces have attacked the protest movement of indigenous peoples on the Caloto-Corinto Road at the Department of Cauca. Four people were seriously injured. "People had to retreat to avoid more injuries," stated Feliciano Valencia, a commoner from CRIC. Colombian government is using excessive force. During the last few weeks, military tanks have been sent to the communities; indigenous leaders have been detained in their homes without legal representation and commoners (men, women and children) have been attacked with tear gas sprayed directly in their faces. Helicopters have been flying over schools and indigenous cultural centres have been destroyed." "However ─according to regional leaders─, none of these actions will be enough to stop our legitimate claim to our lands. None of these actions will shut up our voices to denounce the Colombian Government's lack of justice to give us back territories that have been taken by big landowners some of whom are relatives of current Cauca governor, Juan Jos? Chaux. "Our brothers and sisters will continue to fight to recover the land that was forcefully taken from us." According to OIA press release, "In November 25, 2007, Cauca's governor, supported by President Uribe's Security Council, accused the indigenous protest as an act of delinquency, dismissing legitimate right to protest and claim land that rightfully and historically belonged to the indigenous people. He also intended to associate the indigenous protest to the guerrilla movement FARC-EP, calling terrorists our brothers and sisters, trying to de-legitimate the social movement". "We are not land thieves; you can not steal what is yours", OIA added. ACIN also reports that "the community feels annoyed and sad because of this tragedy produced by the repressive action of Government. However, we will keep resisting until the government arrives at a decision that benefits indigenous people and Mother Earth - not multinationals. We will maintain the rituals to free Mother Earth. Our goal is to defend and maintain our freedom to use our lands for our benefit and to support other indigenous people's fight as well." The Eastern Cauca Territorial Council of Indigenous Authorities (COTAINDOC) rejects Colombian Government's response and demands that serious attention be given to legal agreements previously signed with the Cauca indigenous people. Jointly with other indigenous organizations, "we plead the national and international society, the Human Right organizations and other social organizations to be alert and ready to attend any situation that can occur to the eastern Cauca indigenous people in their legitimate claim for their lands. We make responsible the departmental and central government for the consequences of the violence used against our people." The Indigenous Parliament is peacefully functioning in the Territory of Dialogue, Convergence and Negotiation "La Mar?a" at Piendam? County, since November 22, 2007. We do not accept any violent response from the government and we plead the national and international solidarity. You can read the public proclamation from CRIC Major Council, November 13, 2007 in http://www.nasaacin.net/desafio_no_da_espera.htm More information: http://www.nasaacin.net If you want to support our protest, expressing your concern to Colombian authorities, please fill the form at the bootom of the following weblink: http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=229 Please send immediately to the following addresses: ADDRESSES Colombian President S.E. ?lvaro Uribe V?lez Carrera 8 # 7-26, Palacio de Nari?o Santa Fe de Bogot? Fax: +57.1.566.20.71 E-mail: auribe at presidencia.gov.co Colombian Vice-president Sr. Francisco Santos Tels.: +571334.45.07, +573.7720130 E-mail: fsantos at presidencia.gov.co ; buzon1 at presidencia.gov.co Director of the President Program for Human Rights Dr. Carlos Franco E-mail: cefranco at presidencia.gov.co Director of the Vice-president Program for Human Rights Email: ppdh at presidencia.gov.co Observatory for Human Rights from the Vice-president office Email: obserdh at presidencia.gov.co Ombudsman Dr. Volmar Antonio P?rez Ortiz Calle 55 # 10-32, Bogot?. Fax: + 57.1.640.04.91 E-mail: secretaria_privada at hotmail.com; agenda at agenda.gov.co National Prosecutor Doctor Mario Hern?n Iguar?n Arana Diagonal 22-B # 52-01, Bogot? Fax: +57.1.570.20.00; +57.1.414.90.00 (Extensi?n 1113) E-mail: contacto at fiscalia.gov.co; denuncie at fiscalia.gov.co Colombian permanent mission in United Nations Chemin du Champ d'Anier, 17-19, 1209 Ginebra, Suiza. FAX: + 41.22.791.07.87 TEL.:+ 41.22.798.45.55. E-mail: mission.colombia at ties.itu.int Juridical Office from Cauca Department Doctor Norbey Ivan Ortiz lara juridica at gobcauca.gov.co Government Secretary of Cauca Department Doctor Carlos Horacio G?mez gobierno at gobcauca.gov.co Please take part in an urgent email alert to call on the Colombian authorities to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. Some 10,000 indigenous people in Cauca state have recently begung a civil protest to recover their land, which another 90,000 are waiting to support. They have formed an Indigenous and Popular Parliament which includes delegates from other Colombian social organizations. The Colombian authorities have responded with violence and prosecution. Land is being taken away from indigenous communities in Colombia for palm oil (which is being expanded rapidly for biofuels), for oil drilling and for mining. To take part in the action, please go to http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=229 Assessment for Indigenous Peoples in Colombia: http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=10004 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: