-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 54 - September, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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LUVeR Alternative News is offering a daily audio show using selected
stories from RadTimes & other non-mainstream sources. Check it out!
<www.luver.org>
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Contents:
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--'Civilian Army' of Americans Helps Fight Colombia's Drug War
--Invasion of SWAT Teams Leaves Trauma and Death
--America's Call For Workers' Rights Ignored At Home
--Globalization, Suicide and a Wake Up Call
--A goulash of causes unites a potpourri of protesters
Linked stories:
*Webcasters Caught in RIAA Web
*Gene Foods Don't Make UK Cut
*Review sought of Clinton's 1998 bombing of Sudan
*Supreme Court to decide if drug checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment
*Scientist berates Greens for ignorance
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Begin stories:
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'Civilian Army' of Americans Helps Fight Colombia's Drug War
Published on Wednesday, September 20, 2000 in the Fort Lauderdale
Sun-Sentinel
by E.A. Torriero and Pedro Ruz Gutierrez
FLORENCIA, Colombia - The hotshot pilot swoops down at 200 mph in
his Vietnam-era crop duster, gliding only 50 feet over the coca
valleys he has been hired to destroy.
Colombian soldiers carry the body of a rebel of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in Fusagasuga, about 50 miles
south of Bogota, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2000. Seven FARC rebels were
killed in combat Tuesday with soldiers in Colombia's ongoing civil
conflict. At least 35,000 people have been killed in the conflict
in the last 10 years. (AP Photo/Scott Dalton)
The U.S. Army veteran earns $90,000 a year tax-free as a civilian
pilot, but he understands the downside of this job very well. More
than once, he's had to dodge bullets from peasants and guerrillas
trying to protect Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
This is one pilot who won't mind giving up a big paycheck should
his working conditions continue to deteriorate. "If we start getting
into a civil war, I'm out of here," said the pilot, whose employer
has ordered its workers not to talk to the media. "Americans will
be targeted."
For now, though, he is part of a growing civilian army hired by
Uncle Sam to help fight Colombia's war on drugs, to be financed
largely by $1.3 billion in U.S. aid. Daredevil pilots with military
experience, retired top brass and former Green Berets are all part
of the effort as the first $300 million in aid heads to Colombia
next month.
Expertise in intelligence and law enforcement is a must. Fluency
in Spanish and knowledge of counter-terrorism, jungle warfare and
counter-surveillance is a plus. While there are limits to the number
of American military people who will be involved in training
Colombian troops, there are fewer restrictions on how many U.S.
civilians can be hired by defense contractors. Hundreds of Americans,
lured by hefty salaries for hazardous work, will play a key role
battling guerrillas and traffickers who live off the illicit drug
trade.
"Every pirate, bandit -- everyone who wants to make money on the
war -- they're in Colombia," said one congressional aide in
Washington, who said he would speak candidly only if he were not
identified. He described efforts to snare contracts as a "free-for-all."
"This is what we call outsourcing a war," he said. Much of the
effort, however, will come from companies very familiar to the U.S.
government. At least a dozen U.S. firms are lining up to bid on
Uncle Sam's foreign venture.
FARC commander Fernando Caicedo sits in a retaurant in a small town
near the FARC headquarters. He says that Plan Colombia and its
introduction of military helicopters will lead to a full civil war
in southern Colombia.
TOM BURTON/ THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Pay is high, but so are the risks. The crash of a U.S. Army spy
plane that killed five American soldiers last summer underscored
the potential for casualties. Relatives, including those of Capt.
Jose Santiago Jr. of Orlando, dispute the official Army version of
pilot error and suggest a rebel missile could have shot down the
reconnaissance plane.
Three civilian pilots of Reston, Va.-based DynCorp. and EAST Inc.,
under contract with the State Department, have died in plane crashes
since 1997.
DynCorp did not return telephone calls asking for information on
its Colombia activities.
DynCorp. has up to 30 pilots and crews in charge of fumigating coca
fields with glyphosate, a stronger version of the household weedkiller
Roundup.
The company's presence has grown from only a few pilots several
years ago to more than 60 workers at the Larandia military base
near here.
It is difficult to predict how many Americans will become a part
of the Colombian conflict.
Up to 100 Special Forces and Navy SEALs already are teaching
Colombia's new military-led counter-narcotics battalions. U.S.
workers operating ground-radar stations and civilian coca-spraying
crews provide aircraft maintenance at Colombian bases.
On any given day, 150 to 250 Americans are helping in Colombia's
drug war.
Soldiers as trainers
That number will grow to 500 U.S. troops and 300 civilians under
new caps that can be increased by the president.
American officials say that the U.S. military will not be directly
involved in operations, and the U.S. soldiers will act solely as
trainers.
And much of the contract work for non-military help will be given
first to U.S. companies, which will parcel the work to Colombian
subcontractors.
Of the $120 million in U.S. non-military aid in the next three
years, more than two-thirds of the contracts will go to U.S. firms
or charity groups.
Americans will supervise projects to overhaul Colombia's maligned
justice system, teach farmers to grow alternative crops to coca
and opium, and relocate Colombians fleeing the civil war.
A gift shop outside the headquarters of the Colombian rebel group
FARC does brisk business over the weekend. Behind the counter is
Susana Castro, a 22-year-old, seven-year veteran of the FARC. The
visitors at the counter were at the FARC headquarters for a peace
conference being hosted by the guerrillas. TOM BURTON/THE ORLANDO
SENTINEL
"We are not talking about a large American presence on the ground,"
said a senior U.S. aid official in Washington who would speak only
on background.
"Frankly, we think the Colombians are better suited to do the jobs
that have to be done."
But American firms are cashing in. Bell-Textron and United
Technologies' Sikorsky Aircraft have signed to deliver 18 new UH-60
Blackhawks and 42 "Super" Huey II helicopters.
Orders are pending for at least 14 more by the Colombian Defense
Ministry, making the windfall for the helicopter makers in excess
of $600 million.
Military Personnel Resources Inc., a Virginia-based military-consultant
company run by retired U.S. generals, already is advising the
Colombian armed forces. Other U.S firms have started peddling
nighttime surveillance gear, riverboat technology, aircraft
maintenance services and other wares.
While U.S. companies are leading the rush, foreign companies also
are looking to benefit.
Israeli Defense Industries is trying to sell observation technology
to the Colombian Air Force to outfit its Vietnam-era OV-10 "Bronco"
planes, the same ones leased by the U.S. in fumigation raids.
But it is the growing U.S. presence that has critics from Bogot to
Washington calling the American aid package a prelude to another
Vietnam debacle, with U.S. forces being lured into combat.
Already, some of the people working for private U.S. contractors
are near the front lines.
MPRI, for example, has a former brigadier general, six retired
colonels and several former officers in Colombia to help reorganize
the Colombian armed forces under an 18-month Department of Defense
contract worth $800,000.
Founded by former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Carl Vuono in 1987,
MPRI has about $60 million in contracts worldwide with more than
400 employees who sell their expertise while "capitalizing on the
experience and skills of America's best seasoned professionals,"
according to a company profile.
Vuono brings a wealth of experience to the job, having led the U.S.
Army's Panama and Gulf War operations.
DynCorp. has at least several dozen pilots and ground-support
workers operating under close guard at Colombian military bases,
according to one of the company pilots.
They fly missions to eradicate coca fields with Colombian police
and military helicopters alongside to provide cover.
DynCorp., a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest defense
contractors in the United States, with strong ties to the CIA and
other federal agencies. It has projected sales worth up to $2.5
billion in defense work and commercial ventures by next year.
The trend toward using private contractors and hired guns to carry
out U.S. foreign policy is not new. But it's a trend that's growing.
DynCorp., MPRI and other defense contractors have provided services
in the world's hot spots from Bosnia to the Persian Gulf.
Their contracts are supervised by the U.S. Defense or State
department.
Defense experts say that this so-called outsourcing is not only
cost efficient, it helps shield U.S. lawmakers from criticism if
Americans are killed or injured.
"The military tends to view the civilian contractors as a lot less
confrontational way of doing business," said Chris Hellman, a senior
analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "It's
perceived as a more benign presence."
Defense contractors say their aim is not to fight another country's
battles. "We're very transparent," said retired Army Gen. Ed Soyster,
an MPRI spokesman and former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency.
"We're having (the Colombians) restructure, refocus and demonstrate
correct processes."
'Old boys' club'
Soyster would not discuss an MPRI evaluation of Colombian forces
earlier this year, but said, "What we do is set them up so that
what they do, they do it efficiently."
But critics charge that there isn't a lot of oversight in the
bidding for the profitable overseas projects.
"It's an old boys' club," said the congressional aide, who has
monitored Colombia funding. "All these generals get hired (by
consultants) and do nothing."
Soyster, however, defended his company's mission, saying it adheres
to "uncompromising principles of integrity, honor, courage, loyalty
and selfless service."
Like many contractors, MPRI makes its work quite public.
It has a 10,000-name database and has ongoing recruiting at U.S
military bases. Several months ago, it advertised for "highly
qualified and experienced American military officers and senior
noncommissioned officers"
for its Colombia-U.S. "working group."
Less forthcoming about its activities is Eagle Aviation Services
and Technology Inc. of Patrick Air Force Base, where fumigation
pilots are trained by the State Department's Bureau of Narcotics
and International Law Enforcement's air division.
The company, also known as EAST Inc., is incorporated in several
states but refuses to discuss its role in Colombia because it sees
it as classified.
State Department officials have said EAST is concerned for the
safety of its personnel.
EAST Inc. has placed ads in Ag Pilot, a magazine for crop dusters,
to hire pilots for fumigation work in Colombia's fields. One ad
read: "Highly experienced Ag pilots for year-round positions.
Based in Florida, will work in Central and South America. (Job
requires) ability to speak Spanish and converse in a clear and
understandable manner to a variety of native speakers."
At the Larandia military base 40 miles south of here, American
pilots live in virtual seclusion.
They venture out sometimes for a meal or a drink but only with
armed Colombian soldiers and police in tow.
The soldiers in the rebel FARC are mostly teenagers and include
many women, leading to occasional romance. TOM BURTON/ THE ORLANDO
SENTINEL
Mostly, American pilots fly fumigation missions in daylight and
darkness.
They work in three-week shifts and then often shuttle back to the
United States for a week off.
Colombian choppers fly cover for the American pilots. But increasingly,
the Americans are becoming targets for the rebels.
Two American pilots flying Vietnam-era OV-10 Broncos in the
rebel-infested Caqueta province last month aborted their spraying
mission when they encountered gunfire.
Even so, one pilot thinks the tide will turn once the full force
of the U.S. commitment takes place.
The rebels, he said, will lose their willpower.
Yet, he also predicts the Colombian pilots aren't prepared for
battle either. "They want us to fight their war for them."
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Invasion of SWAT Teams Leaves Trauma and Death
By SHARON DOLOVICH
Friday, September 22, 2000
L.A. Times
Alberto Sepulveda is no Elian Gonzalez. When 11-year-old Sepulveda
was shot and killed last week by a SWAT team member during an early
morning drug raid on his parents' Modesto home, the story barely made
the papers. Yet, as did the Immigration and Naturalization Service
raid on the Gonzalez home in Miami in May, the killing of Alberto
Sepulveda highlights a troubling trend in law enforcement: stealth
raids on the homes of sleeping citizens by heavily armed government
agents.
Such raids are the hallmark of police states, not free societies, but
as a growing number of Americans can attest, the experiences of these
two boys are by no means isolated incidents.
Just ask the widow of Mario Paz. She was asleep with her husband in
their Compton home at 11 p.m. in August 1999 when 20 members of the
local SWAT team shot the locks off the front and back doors and
stormed inside. Moments later, Mario Paz was dead, shot twice in the
back, and his wife was outside, half-naked in handcuffs. The SWAT
team had a warrant to search a neighbor's house for drugs, but Mario
Paz was not listed on it. No drugs were found, and no member of the
family was charged with any crime.
And then there is Denver resident Ismael Mena, a 45-year-old father
of nine, killed last September in his bedroom by SWAT team members
who stormed the wrong house.
Or Ramon Gallardo of Dinuba, Calif., shot 15 times in 1997 by a SWAT
team with a warrant for his son.
Or the Rev. Accelyne Williams of Boston, 75, who died of a heart
attack in 1994 after a Boston SWAT team executing a drug warrant
burst into the wrong apartment.
SWAT teams, now numbering an estimated 30,000 nationwide, were
originally intended for use in emergency situations, hostage-takings,
bomb threats and the like. Trained for combat, their arsenals (often
provided cut rate or free of charge by the Pentagon) resemble those
of small armies: automatic weapons, armored personnel carriers and
even grenade launchers. Today, however, SWAT units are most commonly
used to execute drug warrants, frequently of the "no-knock" variety,
which are issued by judges and magistrates when there is reason to
suspect that the 4th Amendment's "knock and announce" requirement,
already perfunctorily applied, would be dangerous or futile, or would
give residents time to destroy incriminating evidence.
California is one of few states that does not allow no-knock
warrants. But the fate of Alberto Sepulveda--who was shot dead an
estimated 60 seconds after the SWAT team "knocked and
announced"--suggests the problem is not the type of warrant issued
but the use of military tactics.
The state's interest in protecting evidence of drug crimes from
destruction, or even in preventing the escape of suspected drug
felons, does not justify the threat to individual safety, security
and peace of mind that the use of these tactics represents. On this,
the now-famous image of a terrified Elian facing an armed INS agent
speaks volumes. Even when no shot is fired, these raids leave in
their wake families traumatized by memories of an armed invasion by
government agents.
Police officers, too, are shot in these raids, barging unannounced
into homes where weapons are kept. These shootings may appear to
confirm the dangerousness of the criminals being pursued, until one
realizes that they are committed when people are caught by surprise
by intruders in their own homes and not unreasonably, if
unfortunately, grab a weapon to defend themselves. (Suspects also die
in these shootouts. Troy Davis, 25, was shot point blank in the chest
by Texas police who broke down his door during a no-knock raid in
December 1999 and found him with a gun in his hand. Police had been
pursuing a tip that Davis and his mother were growing marijuana. His
gun was legal.)
Using paramilitary units to enforce drug warrants is the inevitable
result of the government's tendency to see itself as fighting a "war
on drugs." This rhetoric makes it easy to forget that the targets in
these raids are not the enemy but fellow citizens, and that the laws
being enforced are supposed to ensure a safe, peaceful, well-ordered
society. If lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento are genuinely
committed to defending the right of the American people to be safe
and secure in their own homes, they would demand an accounting for
the thousands of drug raids executed by SWAT teams every year all
over the country, raids that get little media attention but nonetheless
leave their targets traumatized and violated. Assuming, that is, that
they leave them alive.
----
Sharon Dolovich Is an Acting Professor at UCLA School of Law
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America's Call For Workers' Rights Ignored At Home
Published September 20, 2000 in the San Francisco Chronicle
by Medea Benjamin
WHILE THE UNITED STATES pressures countries around the world to
respect the internationally recognized rights of workers to form
trade unions, bargain collectively and strike, a new yearlong
study by Human Rights Watch found that these basic rights are
systematically violated here at home.
>From apple pickers in Washington state to home-care workers in
Florida, workers who try to form trade unions are spied on,
harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired or deported,
according to the study ``Deck Is Stacked Against U.S. Workers.''
An astounding 10,000 to 20,000 workers lose their jobs each year
for simply exercising the right to organize a union. When workers
do manage to unionize, employers often refuse to bargain in good
faith, dragging out legal proceedings for years with the knowledge
that the penalties are minimal -- no fines, no jail time -- just
back pay and possibly reinstatement. And the legal fees employers
pay are all tax-deductible. The effectiveness of government
agencies entrusted with enforcing workers rights is weakened by
enervating delays, budget cuts and understaffing, obstructive laws
and remedies too weak to deter unlawful conduct. The deterioration
of workers' rights so meticulously detailed in the Human Rights
Watch report coincides with the free-trade agenda promoted by both
the Democrats and Republicans. It's an agenda that encourages
employers to move jobs overseas where workers have even less power.
While most unions still cling to the Democrats as the ``lesser of
two evils'' (and provide the Democratic Party with funds and foot
soldiers), the Democrats have now joined the Republicans in filling
their campaign coffers with corporate donations and abandoning
working people. It was, after all, a Democratic administration with
a Democratic-controlled Congress that passed the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, the first of a series of trade
agreements that put downward pressure on wages and environmental
standards.
As workers rights are eroded and bargaining power declines, it is no
wonder that union membership in the United States has plummeted to
the lowest level in 60 years and the lowest rate in the industrialized
world -- a mere 14 percent of the total workforce. If unionized
government workers are excluded, the percentage drops to just about 9
percent. While business sectors portray unions as ``old-fashioned'' and
out of step with today's economy, surveys show that one- third to one-
half of all workers would welcome the opportunity to join a union.
The precipitous decline in unions, which historically have been the
engine that pulled workers into the middle class, has been particularly
devastating at the lower end of the wage ladder. In California, more
workers earn poverty-level wages now than a decade ago. The minimum
wage nationwide has fallen from about $7 an hour in 1969 (in today's
dollars) to the current level of $5.15 an hour or $10,712 a year,
leaving millions of full-time workers and their families living in
full-time poverty. In Europe, where union membership is considerably
higher, the typical low-wage worker earns 44 percent more than in the
United States and has government-provided health care and a host of
other benefits.
The obscene inequality in compensation between workers and CEOs is
another reflection of the shifting balance of power between workers
and employers. In 1980, chief executives made 40 times more than the
average worker's wage. Today, that figure is 475. If production
workers had experienced the same proportional gains over the past
decade as CEOs, their wages, on average, would be $114,000, not
$23,750, and the minimum wage would be $24 an hour!
The present disequilibrium between workers and employers represents
a serious danger to our democracy. We need to fight for changes in our
labor laws that will shift the scale to restore workers rights. These
include: requiring employers to remain neutral during union organizing
drives with a card-check system through which workers can show their
support for a union simply by signing authorization cards; swift and
severe penalties for unfair labor practices; an end to the permanent
replacement of striking workers; and granting agricultural, domestic,
contract workers, and others currently excluded from coverage by
federal labor law, the same rights as other workers.
In addition to reforming labor laws, we need to enforce existing wage,
hour, health and safety laws, which means giving the enforcement
agencies adequate funds to monitor compliance and to prosecute offenders.
To demonstrate to the world our renewed commitment to workers rights, we
should ratify the many International Labor Organization conventions we
have thus far failed to ratify, especially the Convention on Freedom of
Association and Protecting the Right to Organize.
As a society, we must understand that respecting workers' rights and
achieving a more equitable balance of power between workers and employers
will go a long way toward reversing the troubling and dangerous economic
polarization that now exists.
It will give workers a voice in the public debate over economic and social
policy, make elections more relevant to workers' needs, and reinvigorate
our democratic process. Indeed, it is essential for the long- term health
of our country.
----
Medea Benjamin, founding director of the human rights group Global
Exchange, is the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate.
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Globalization, Suicide and a Wake Up Call
September 23, 2000
By Bill Fletcher, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I read a story recently which has haunted me ever since. A
very famous Argentine heart surgeon named Dr. Rene Favaloro
shot himself. What struck me about this suicide is that it
apparently resulted from the despair, anger, frustration
and desire to advance a protest, which the doctor had been
feeling about his unsuccessful efforts to gain healthcare
for the poor and working people of Argentina.
The story, detailed in the August 25th issue of the
Washington Post, describes how the neo-liberal economic
policies pursued by Argentina's government have, effectively,
destroyed healthcare for the masses. Healthcare is available
for the rich, but the working class and poor are finding
themselves losing such provisions. Programs which had been
offered by unions, for example, are collapsing as workers
lose jobs, revenue fails to come in, and the unions are
weakened if not crushed by the government and corporations.
One observer commented that the suicide might not have
been solely out of despair, but an attempt to wake up the
populace to the implications of corporate globalization and
economic neo-liberalism. My immediate thoughts turned to the
Buddhist monks who, in the early 1960s in South Vietnam, set
themselves ablaze in order to protest the repressive, corrupt
regime of President Diem. That self-immolation helped spark
a massive popular uprising against the regime, which was
headed off by a military coup. I wondered, after reading
the article, whether Dr. Favaloro was hoping to inspire
a similar outrage and movement.
Not knowing what is now transpiring in Argentina (needless
to say, there are rarely informative follow up pieces), I
thought about the situation in the USA. Although some of
the details are a bit different, the context is all but
the same. Between 44 and 50 million people, annually lack
healthcare. This is not, mainly, a group of the unemployed.
People are working more and more jobs which carry with them
fewer and fewer benefits, and especially precious little
healthcare. Workers bear greater burdens for all benefits
and increasingly for training as well, as companies reduce
their core workforces and limit their liabilities.
The factors which drove Dr. Favaloro to suicide, thus,
face us here as well. The economic safety nets which existed,
either through legislation or collective bargaining agreements,
have shown themselves in recent years to be moth eaten. Worse
yet, both corporate America and their political allies on
the Right mock a defense of social safety nets. The notion
that a worker is owed a pension or healthcare, let alone a
living wage, in exchange for their labor power is evaporating.
In its stead is the doctrine of everyone for one's self.
Dr. Favaloro should not be ridiculed as unbalanced, or seen
as an isolated expression of desperation. The anger which
drove Dr. Favaloro to both fight for the Argentine working
class and the poor; an anger which led him to take the
ultimate step in protest, is an anger which is not alien
to millions of workers both here and abroad. As the global
polarization between rich and poor increases at breakneck
speed, it is important to realize that the seeds of immense
social instability are being planted, fertilized and watered
by the forces which are advancing corporate globalization.
The next set of explosions may not be guns used in suicide,
but social explosions as the global majority repudiates
corporate globalization.
----
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Assistant to the President of the
AFL-CIO, and the National Organizer of the Black Radical
Congress. The views expressed in this article are his own.
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A goulash of causes unites a potpourri of protesters
A new generation of globe-trotting activists descends on
Prague to protest IMF policies.
By Alexandra Poolos
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
September 25, 2000
DOLNI SLIVNO, CZECH REPUBLIC
It looks a lot like the parking lot outside a Grateful Dead
show. There's homemade tomato soup and herbal tea, dreadlocks,
dirty tents, and a compost latrine. But amid the rusted
tractors and overgrown weeds at this dilapidated farm in Dolni
Slivno, near Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, there's
more a sense of purpose than a devotion to counterculture
celebration.
Behind the tarp-cloaked front gate of the covert training camp
on a recent afternoon, a motley crowd of some 500 protesters,
from European trade unionists to Israeli environmentalists,
busy themselves painting banners or making peanut butter
sandwiches. A woman stands on stilts to announce the afternoon
program of workshops in English, then in Czech: "From 1 to 3
p.m.," she says, "We'll have Tree Climbing for Beginners,
followed by Blockading Tactics, the Samba Circle, and a workshop
in how to protect ourselves from tear gas and pepper spray."
The protesters from around the world are preparing for days of
action that they hope will focus world attention on the problems
of economic globalization. They are some of the more than 350
different citizens' groups espousing a variety of causes, set on
disrupting the annual series of International Monetary Fund and
World Bank meetings. Initial gatherings began on Sept. 19,
with the main conference set for Sept. 26-28. This year officials
are discussing debt relief for developing countries, world
poverty, and IMF reforms.
"Around the world" is the key phrase. Emboldened by last year's
sometimes-violent demonstrations in Seattle, the mainly
twentysomething protesters have taken their backpacks, hiking
boots, and kerosene burners on to Philadelphia, Melbourne,
Australia and Manchester, England, forming the core of a truly
global movement.
Standing near a campfire in brown designer sandals and carefully
pressed jeans, Chelsea Mozen is dismissive of the "Grateful Dead"
image. "This is just not true," she says. "We are here because we
believe the corporations and the bankers associated with the IMF
and the World Bank have too much power and that their decisions
affect poor people in real-life ways that they know nothing about."
The "nonviolent" army of anarchists, drifters, trust-fund babies,
and idealists deny that their movement is organized. Their
individualist, decentralized approach may explain why people like
Ms. Mozen climb on board. Mozen is the spokeswoman for the
Initiative Against Economic Globalization (INPEG), the local
umbrella group running the training camp and unifying protesters
arriving in Prague. While they differ on whether the IMF and World
Bank should be dismantled altogether or merely reformed, all are
against the policies of the two institutions, which they say place
economic and commercial interests above labor, environmental, and
social concerns.
David Lorenc, a law student, is one of 30 home-grown Czech
activists with INPEG. He says the IMF's post-1989 loans to the
former Czechoslovakia required the government to slash social
spending and displace workers. "It's hard to believe it, but
ordinary people who are victims of IMF and World Bank policies
don't feel that they have more in common with the people who are
protesting on their behalf on the street," he says. "After the
protests, I hope that they will see that we are not hooligans,
but that they too have join us on the streets."
Czech authorities, for their part, view the summits as a debutante
party to the corporate world and foreign investors. They worry that
some of the clans descending on Prague, inspired by Seattle, will
permanently tarnish the image of this European Union hopeful. To
head off possible unrest, 11,000 officers, including 1,400 armored
riot police, are on hand to keep control of the 15,000 to 20,000
expected demonstrators. A minor clash occurred on Saturday when
300 anarchists attacked a group of 40 skinheads, but no serious
injuries were reported.
The real action is set for Sept. 26, when protesters plan to blockade
the Congress Center Prague, where delegates are scheduled to meet
for the formal opening of the IMF and World Bank conference.
This time around, they also plan but to set out their alternative
vision. They have organized a countersummit with revisionist
academics, including sociologist Walden Bello and Egyptian economist
Said Amin. They are coordinating through the Internet with local
groups in 40 countries to stage a global day of action that will
coincide with the Prague protest.
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Linked stories:
********************
Webcasters Caught in RIAA Web
<http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39076,00.html?tw=wn20000927>
Think you want to webcast music? Think again. With the U.S. Copyright
Office moving at a snail's pace, webcasters are finding dealings with
the recording industry difficult. By Brad King.
********************
Gene Foods Don't Make UK Cut
<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39071,00.html?tw=wn20000927>
The United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency wants to label genetically
modified animal feed. But the public says it's not enough. From the
Environment News Service.
********************
=====> Review sought of Clinton's 1998 bombing of Sudan
<http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24425-2000Sep26.html>
The 1998 wag-the-dog cruise missile destruction of a
pharmaceutical plant in Sudan may be reviewed by the U.S. Court
of Claims to determine compensation for the owner. The Clinton
administration admits that the factory, as it turns out, had no
connection to terrorists or chemical weapons. (9/27/00)
********************
Supreme Court to decide if drug checkpoints violate the Fourth Amendment
<http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/scotus/09/27/scotus.indy.drug.checkpoints/index.html>
The Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of an
Indianapolis traffic roadblock program, under which police
officers randomly stopped and searched vehicles for drugs. (9/29/00)
********************
=====> Scientist berates Greens for ignorance
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000111676745840&rtmo=lnklwzwt&atmo=lnklwzwt&pg=/et/00/9/28/ngre28.html>
James Lovelock, a scientist widely revered by Greens for his
formulation of "the Gaia Hypothesis," tore into Green activists
for their hatred of science and opposition to nuclear power and
genetically modified food. (9/28/00)
********************
======================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
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