>
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: STUDENTS EXPOSE ANTI-NATIVE
>"SECRET SOCIETY"
>
>By Julie Fry
>Ann Arbor, Mich.
>
>On Feb. 6, members of the Students of Color Coalition at
>the University of Michigan forced their way into the locked
>tower of the Michigan Student Union and exposed one of the
>university's dirtiest and most well-kept secrets.
>
>The tower is home to three administration-backed "secret
>societies." At least one has mocked and insulted the Native
>community for almost 100 years through its use of racist
>pseudo-Native customs and objects in its rituals.
>
>The secret club is known as Michigamua. It is composed of
>the most elite students on campus--and provides a network
>for the most privileged students to interact with rich and
>powerful alumni like former President Gerald Ford and, in
>earlier decades, Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy and
>others.
>
>Since the 1930s, the university has granted exclusive use
>of the space in the tower to Michigamua and the other
>"secret societies." The university also grants them special
>privileges like access to university stadiums to hold group
>initiations.
>
>Upon entering Michigamua's headquarters, SCC members
>discovered that the entire room was built in the shape of a
>wigwam. It was covered with offensive items including
>figurines depicting Native people with exaggerated physical
>characteristics and plaques using pseudo-Native names like
>"Great Scalper."
>
>Michigamua has always mocked and desecrated Native rituals
>and symbols. Film from the 1960s discovered by the SCC
>shows Michigamua members wearing headdresses and face paint
>performing a mock-Native ceremony. Michigamua alumni and
>University administrators are shown looking on and
>laughing.
>
>Native students at the University of Michigan have
>struggled since 1972 to expose Michigamua's racist
>activities. In 1989, Michigamua officers signed an
>agreement with the university administration and the Native
>American Student Association in which they agreed that they
>would "eliminate all reference to Native American culture
>and pseudo-culture and extensions and parodies thereof."
>
>Evidence gained through the SCC's current occupation of
>the tower, however, shows that Michigamua has continued its
>racist parody of Native culture.
>
>In addition to the racist memorabilia, the SCC found
>documents referring to current members using mock-Native
>names. They found a ceremonial pipe--and a 1996 picture
>showing a Michigamua member with a ceremonial pipe in one
>hand and a cup of beer in the other.
>
>Joe Reilly, a Native student who is participating in the
>occupation, found the photograph particularly offensive. He
>explained, "The pipe is a very sacred object and it is
>extremely offensive to use it while drinking alcohol--which
>has been used to try to colonize my people for years."
>
>After the SCC gained access to the tower, its members
>opened it up to the public. They began giving tours to
>expose the university-backed Michigamua. More than 2,000
>people have now seen the inside of the tower.
>
>The SCC has received tremendous support from the
>community. During the first week of the occupation up to
>100 supporters slept outside the entrance to the tower
>every night in support of the occupiers. Students held a
>400-person rally on Feb. 19. Leaders of the Native
>community from all over Michigan attended.
>
>The same day, 500 people greeted the Rev. Al Sharpton, who
>came to tour Michigamua's headquarters and to express his
>support of the protest.
>
>To date, however, the university administration has
>refused to meet with the occupiers or even consider the
>SCC's demands: that the administration sever all
>affiliation with the tower societies and that the societies
>be evicted from the tower, which should be made into a
>cultural studies lounge.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:30:06 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Wisc Students Arrested Exposing "Fair Labor" Sham
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>58 ARRESTED: WISCONSIN STUDENT ACTIONS EXPOSE "FAIR
>LABOR" SHAM
>
>By Bryan G. Pfeifer
>Madison, Wis.
>
>Early on the morning of Feb. 20, police went on campus at
>the University of Wisconsin in Madison and arrested at
>least 58 of the students who had been occupying the
>chancellor's office since Feb. 16. Late reports indicate
>the situation was still tense on campus the following day
>with continuing protests.
>
>Some 100 students had braved pepper spray and physical
>threats by campus police to take over the chancellor's
>office. The protest and subsequent sit-in came in response
>to the university's association with corporations that
>manufacture apparel with University of Wisconsin logos made
>in sweatshops.
>
>"One of our primary demands is that the university pull
>out of the Fair Labor Association," organizer Amanda
>Klonsky said. "The FLA is run by corporations like Nike ...
>They [the corporations] decide whether their [own]
>practices are fair or not."
>
>The FLA is an organization that "keeps monitoring reports,
>factory locations and conditions [in sweatshops] secret,"
>according to a leaflet distributed at the sit-in.
>
>The students want the University of Wisconsin to join the
>newly formed Worker Rights Consortium monitoring group,
>which they say operates outside of corporate control. The
>students stress that the WRC--an organization developed by
>students across the United States in consultation with
>unions and human-rights groups--focuses on human rights and
>not corporate profits.
>
>Cullen Carns-Hilliker, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
>sophomore and member of the Progressive Student Network,
>traveled to Madison on Feb. 16 in support of the sit-in. He
>made the trip "to say that Milwaukee is here for people in
>Madison and also to publicize the way that universities are
>being bought out by corporations when it comes to the
>apparel that they sell at its stores."
>
>Campus police sprayed pepper spray on at least eight
>students as the students tried to follow the cops into
>Chancellor David Ward's office to present their demands.
>The students retaliated by spraying a fire extinguisher
>into the office, but they had to clear the area when the
>spray became too strong. There were no injuries.
>
>Earlier, about 20 students occupied Ward's office and
>chained themselves together with bicycle locks. Dozens of
>other students remained in the hallway outside Ward's
>office.
>
>The students have six main demands for the university
>administration: join the Workers' Rights Consortium; ensure
>that the Collegiate Licensing Consortium is complying with
>the terms agreed to after 1999 protests; form a university
>consortium on living wages; no punishment for the student
>protesters; discipline the administrator who ordered the
>police attack; and immediate withdrawal from the FLA.
>
>The protest is the latest dispute between students and the
>university administration over how to prevent the
>exploitation of workers--often women and children--that
>make University of Wisconsin-licensed clothing.
>
>A YEAR OF PROTESTS
>
>Earlier this month, three students resigned from the
>Collegiate Licensing Committee Task Force Advisory
>Committee. That committee was formed after a 97-hour
>protest and occupation last April.
>
>It was created to guide the university on how to best end
>the use of sweatshop labor in manufacturing merchandise
>bearing the University of Wisconsin logo. Three faculty
>members, three academic staff members and three students
>sat on the committee.
>
>Students charged that Ward was not honoring promises he
>made after last year's occupation, that the committee
>lacked teeth and that their input was not taken seriously.
>
>"We never really had a voice in determining what would
>happen. [Ward] would listen to what we would say and
>continue to do what he wanted to do regardless," former
>committee member Marc Braken said after the students
>resigned.
>
>The administration quickly gave in on one issue. "I think
>[the FLA] is an obstacle to good communication [on the
>sweatshop issue]," Ward declared during the sit-in. "UW-
>Madison is now withdrawn from the FLA." On Feb. 17, Ward
>showed up at his office to repeat that the university had
>pulled out of the FLA.
>
>But Ward said that the university would not join the WRC.
>He claimed that the group had not created enough guidelines
>and doesn't have the confidence of other university
>presidents. He promised to consult with other universities
>and report to the students by Feb. 21.
>
>Over 50 labor, community, and campus groups in Wisconsin
>and across the United States endorsed the sit-in. Local
>supporters included the Queer Student Alliance, Madison
>Anti-Sweatshop Coalition, Student Labor Action Coalition at
>UW-Milwaukee, National Organization for Women, Wisconsin
>for Mumia and the A Job is Right Campaign.
>
>Other protests took place at the University of Michigan,
>the University of Pennsylvania, and Oberlin College.
>Student activists in Madison and across the United States
>hope their actions draw attention to a WRC founding
>conference to be held in April at New York University.
>
>In Minneapolis at an open forum sponsored by the
>university's Fair Labor Task Force, students rejected the
>university's consideration of FLA membership. Students
>managed to collect more than 400 signatures on a petition
>against joining the FLA.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:31:44 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] U Mich "Sweat-In"
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>"SWEAT-IN" MAKES U MICH FEEL THE HEAT
>
>By Julie Fry
>Ann Arbor, Mich.
>
>Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality, a
>University of Michigan student group, took over the office
>of the Dean of the College of Literature, Science and Arts
>on Feb. 16. The protest hit the university's failure to
>enforce the anti-sweatshop code to which the administration
>committed itself last year after a similar building
>occupation.
>
>The students demanded that the university join the
>Worker's Rights Consortium, a program developed by students
>to serve as an enforcement mechanism for anti-sweatshop
>codes. The WRC is an alternative to the Clinton
>administration's Fair Labor Association. Activists say the
>FLA covers up for the abuses of its members like Nike and
>the Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line.
>
>The occupation was carried out in coordination with
>similar actions at the University of Pennsylvania, the
>University of Indiana and the University of Wisconsin. The
>protest also involved coordination between SOLE and the
>Students of Color Coalition in an effort to escalate the
>pressure on the university administration.
>
>SOLE members stormed the dean's office to begin a "sweat-
>in." They set up a mini-sweatshop there, and began making
>T-shirts with the logo "Michigan--End Sweatshops."
>
>They told the dean and her staff that they were welcome to
>stay in the office as long as they were willing to work in
>the sweatshop for 30 cents an hour. The dean quickly left.
>
>In addition, SOLE members put the dean's office up for
>auction on the online auction house eBay. SOLE member Adam
>Kramer said: "The university has been up for sale for a
>long time to Nike and other corporations. We just wanted to
>make it official."
>
>The dean's office remained up for sale until the next day
>when eBay took it down--but not before several supporters
>bid on the item.
>
>By Feb. 18, SOLE had declared a partial victory. The
>administration agreed to meet the students' demands by
>joining the Worker's Rights Consortium. This is an
>important victory for the student anti-sweatshop movement,
>since the University of Michigan logo is consistently one
>of the top-selling logos in college apparel.
>
>Both SOLE and the SCC agree that the willingness of the
>administrators to meet the demands of the sweatshop
>protesters--the majority of whom were white--contrasted
>with their refusal to meet the demands of the students of
>color who have been occupying the tower of the Union for
>two weeks. They view this as evidence of the racism that
>students of color on this campus face when asking the
>administration to address their concerns.
>
>While SOLE won a partial victory Feb. 18, its members have
>made it clear that they do not trust the administration.
>They ask how an administration so blatantly racist toward
>the students on its own campus can be committed to fighting
>racism and exploitation in factories as far away as
>Indonesia.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>Message-ID: <003701bf7e92$206b2140$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Puerto Rico tells Clinton, Rossello: 'No deal'
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 01:36:31 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>200,000 STRONG:
>PUERTO RICO TELLS CLINTON, ROSSELLO: "NO DEAL"
>
>By Monica Somocurcio
>
>On Feb. 21, some 200,000 people marched in Hato Rey,
>Puerto Rico, to demand peace and the permanent end of all
>military activity by the U.S. Navy in the island
>municipality of Vieques.
>
>The demonstration stretched for a mile and a half on a
>six-lane highway and ended with a massive rally in the
>Hiram Bithorn Stadium. This massive show of support for the
>people of Vieques was the first mass island-wide march
>against the Navy.
>
>The rally was called primarily by a coalition of churches
>of various denominations. The General Council of Workers
>and all the island's major political parties--with the
>exception of the ruling pro-annexation New Progressive
>Party--also supported the march.
>
>The march's main slogan was "Peace for Vieques." Church
>leaders urged marchers to wear white and carry white flags
>as symbols of peace. Many homes along the route had white
>flags hanging from their balconies in support of the rally.
>
>Although politicians of the pro-commonwealth party, the
>Popular Democratic Party, the Puerto Rican Independence
>Party and of other pro-independence political organizations
>were present and participated, they were not allowed to
>speak. Only church officials spoke. Rally organizers said
>they did not want political affiliation to be an issue.
>
>U.S. lackeys from the pro-annexation New Progressive Party
>(PNP) fumed at the massive turnout. "It is anti-American,
>anti-Navy, and does not contribute to the serious work that
>Gov. Rossello has done to obtain the Navy's exit,"
>sputtered PNP leader Edison Misla Aldarondo. Other PNP
>leaders called the march's church organizers "separatists."
>
>While the event was being televised in Puerto Rico, the
>Rev. Jesse Jackson called one of the networks covering the
>event and expressed his support for the demonstration. He
>pledged to return to Vieques to lend his support again to
>the movement.
>
>The people of Puerto Rico have been struggling to evict
>the Navy from areas it has occupied in Vieques for the past
>60 years. Vieques is a populated island, with over 9,000
>people.
>
>SQUATTER CAMPS STOPPED NAVY COLD
>
>On April 19, 1999, a misfired U.S. Navy missile killed a
>civilian, sparking a wave of anti-Navy activity. Activists
>have been camping in the Navy's training grounds since
>then. The camps have stopped the Navy from firing a single
>shot.
>
>Given this history, the Feb. 21 demonstration is the
>culmination of 10 months of organizing at the grassroots
>level and of civil disobedience carried out by the people
>of Vieques.
>
>On Feb. 1, pro-annexation Gov. Pedro Rossell¢ announced
>that he had signed an agreement with the Clinton
>administration allowing the Navy to stay for at least
>another three years and scheduling a referendum to be
>carried out by the Navy at some point within 18 months.
>Many in Puerto Rico view this move as traitorous because up
>until that point Rossello had pledged opposition to the
>Navy staying in Vieques.
>
>The massive demonstration shows that only the PNP and the
>governor have backed down and accepted the Clinton deal.
>"The Viequenses are not alone," said the archbishop of
>Caguas, Alvaro Corrada del Rio. "The consensus that the
>people have maintained has been heard, respected and
>embraced by the rest of our island of Puerto Rico."
>
>The Catholic Church has set up its own camp in Vieques,
>becoming one of the latest additions to the growing number
>of encampments standing in the way of the Pentagon
>training.
>
>The White House has been monitoring the reaction to its
>deal with the Rossello administration. Jeffrey Farrow, co-
>director of the White House's Group on Puerto Rico, told
>the Puerto Rican press that "even if a million people
>march" the president's decision is firm and will not
>change.
>
>However, just days before the march, Farrow called San
>Juan's Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves. The archbishop
>referred to the conversation as pleasant and said "the
>conversation ended with us agreeing to continue the
>dialogue," appearing to leave open the possibility of
>changes to the agreement.
>
>The Pentagon was also forced to pay attention. Facing the
>continued occupations in Vieques and the prospect of a huge
>march, Pentagon officials turned back the warship USS
>George Washington as it steamed toward Vieques.
>
>The George Washington had been scheduled to train in
>Vieques in March, and activists were preparing for another
>showdown.
>
>This is the second time the people in Vieques have kept a
>warship from entering its territory. The USS Einsenhower
>was also redirected away from Vieques after activists
>refused to leave the training grounds.
>
>Role of the church
>
>While the demonstration in Hato Rey was massive and
>clearly shows the unity among the people of Puerto Rico
>against the Navy, it does pose some problems. The churches
>have taken a leading role in the Vieques movement by
>becoming the vehicle to rebuild the consensus that existed
>before the Rossello/Clinton agreement.
>
>But one of the demonstration's demands was to speed up the
>referendum so it takes place before the Navy renews any
>exercises. This is contrary to the original demand of the
>Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques--the
>leaders of the Viequenses opposed to the bombings--that the
>massive discontent with the Navy is referendum enough and
>no other referendum is needed.
>
>This march and rally clearly show that the people of
>Puerto Rico don't want the U.S. Navy to remain one extra
>day in their land. They will not allow the governor,
>Clinton or anyone to change that. The will and organized
>strength of the Puerto Rican people is the fundamental
>obstacle to those political forces that would defuse the
>movement with compromise and capitulation.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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