WW News Service Digest #226
1) Medical neglect kills women prisoners
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) On the picket line: 2/8/2001
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Quebec City, Canada: Is A20 the next protest date?
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) 4th Iraq Sanctions Challenge returns
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Ed Lewinson: Helping to bring a bright, sunny day
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) People's struggle gains ground in Colombia
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CHOWCHILLA, CALIFORNIA:
MEDICAL NEGLECT KILLS WOMEN PRISONERS
By Anne Sadler
Over 150 bereaved family members, friends and prisoner-
rights activists traveled hundreds of miles to this women's
maximum-security prison Jan. 27 to express their outrage at
the recent rash of unnecessary and preventable deaths here.
The memorial protest commemorated the lives of these women
who died from lack of medical care. Wearing black and
carrying replica tombstones with the names of the victims
who were mothers, sisters, daughters and aunts, marchers
demonstrated in front of the gates of this prison that is
surrounded by hundreds of miles of farmland.
Chowchilla is the biggest women's prison in the United
States. Over 3,000 women are incarcerated here.
Also here, an unprecedented 17 healthcare-related deaths
have occurred in one year. Nine of them were in the last two
months of 2000 alone.
These traumatic and unexpected deaths may appear on the
surface to be unrelated. But a clear pattern of health-care
neglect in the California prison system is apparent.
Most if not all of these deaths could have been prevented if
proper, timely medical care had been available. Instead,
these women--some who were due to be paroled within a matter
of weeks--were given a death sentence at the hands of the
state of California.
Guards with minimal medical training are allowed, within
their adversarial role with prisoners, to decide who lives
and who dies under their "care." Prison-rights activists say
that guards decide who gets medical attention and who gets
to see advanced medical professionals.
Even getting a yes decision is no guarantee of adequate
medical attention. "We have been fighting for medical care
at this prison for over seven years. It's tragic that women
are still dying from criminally negligent health care," said
Beth Feinberg of California Prison Focus.
The Jan. 27 protest was organized by a coalition of prison
activist groups including Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children, California Prison Focus, Justice Now and the
California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
SOUTH CAROLINA: LONGSHORE PICKETERS FACE FELONY CHARGES, JAIL
A crucial struggle is unfolding to defend five Charleston,
S.C., longshore workers who face possible imprisonment on
state criminal charges from a struggle against the use of
non-union crews.
The workers are members of the International Longshoremen's
Association. The charges arose one year ago, after a pitched
battle on the docks the night of Jan. 19-20, 2000.
These five and 150 other workers were heading toward a
planned picket against a scab ship. A massive contingent of
police attacked them. The workers fought back.
The trials of the Charleston 5 could begin as early as
February.
The South Carolina and national AFL-CIO have begun an
international campaign to defend the workers and their
unions--Clerks and Checkers Local 1771 and Longshore Local
1422--whose membership is overwhelmingly African American.
"This is a very compelling case, one that brings together
all the issues--voice at work and the right to organize,
issues of racial justice and issues of democracy," said Bill
Fletcher, assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and
the federation's liaison to the campaign.
The Charleston struggle against scab ships began on Oct. 1,
1999 when Nordana Lines told longshore locals that they
planned to sever their 23-year ties with the union and use
non-union replacements on their ships. The locals responded
with picket lines that delayed some Nordana ships.
Last Jan. 19-20, the state of South Carolina--a "right to
work" state with the country's lowest unionization rate--
launched a repressive, anti-union offensive. To protect the
right of Nordana Line and Winyah Stevedoring to employ scab
non-union labor, the state sent in 600 police in full riot
gear. Some were on horseback, some in armored vehicles.
Others circled in helicopters overhead or floated in patrol
boats near the terminal.
As added provocation, the police mustered at the terminal
and in front of the union's hall nearby.
That evening, as the workers headed toward the terminal to
exercise their legal right to picket, the police pushed them
back. A cop ran out of formation and clubbed Local 1422
President Ken Riley on the head, and a fight began. As is
typical in cases of police assault, the cops arrested some
of the victims--eight longshore workers who police charged
with misdemeanor trespassing.
State Attorney General Charlie Condon then took over the
case, upping the charges to "felony rioting." A judge
dismissed the charges at a preliminary hearing, but Condon
went to a grand jury and got felony riot indictments against
the Charleston 5.
Condon says he intends to prosecute the workers vigorously.
His plans for them, he says, include "jail, jail and more
jail." In addition, although Nordana settled with the union
in April, the company that supplied the scabs sued the
Longshore locals and 27 picketing workers for $1.5 million
in financial losses.
"It's no coincidence that the racist police attack took
place around the time that 47,000 people--mainly African
American--marched to demand that the confederate flag be
torn from the top of the South Carolina capitol," said Larry
Holmes, co-founder of Workfairness, which organizes workfare
workers in New York. "The powers that be would like to push
back these militant longshore workers because they represent
a strong, anti-racist current tying the labor movement with
the community. That's why we need to step up to defend the
Charleston 5."
Donna Dewitt, president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, said
the march against the confederate flag "scared the
Republicans to death in this state." As a result, she said,
"They're using the long-shore union as an example because
they are strong leaders and the state doesn't want others to
see them that way."
The AFL-CIO campaign will seek the acquittal of the
Charleston 5 and complete vindication of the 27 workers and
their locals in the lawsuit. Organizers say the campaign --
which will create Charleston 5 defense committees nationwide-
-will also build a strong case for workers' rights and
expose the racist efforts of the state to limit Black power
in South Carolina.
"Local 1422 is a largely African American local, a very
important segment of the Charleston community," said
Fletcher. "It is significant that they are under attack
because they are living proof that unionization is the best
anti-poverty program ever created."
Charleston 5 defense committees will reach out to community,
civil-rights, religious, political and academic
organizations and activists to help raise money for the
workers' defense and take part in an international day of
action when the trial begins.
"Anyone who wants to fight racism and stand up for the
rights of workers to organize should get behind the defense
of these workers," said Johnnie Stevens, who organizes green-
grocery and other low-wage workers with UNITE Local 169.
For more information readers can go to www.ilwu.org and
click on "Charle ston 5 Information" at the top of the home
page. Readers can also send checks payable to "Dockworkers
Defense Fund" to Campaign for Workers' Rights in South
Carolina, P.O. Box 21777, Charleston, SC 29413 or to
Dockworkers Defense Fund, attn: Robert J. Ford, 910 Morrison
Drive, Charleston, SC 29403.
CROWN SETTLEMENT ENDS FIVE-YEAR LOCKOUT
After a steadfast five-year campaign that rallied support
from labor, civil-rights, religious and environmental
activists in the United States and worldwide, locked-out oil
workers at Crown Central Petroleum have ratified a union
contract. The 252 workers, members of the Paper, Allied-
Industrial, Chemical and Energy, were locked out by Crown in
Pasadena, Texas, near Houston on Feb. 5, 1996.
Their new agreement, ratified Jan. 17, provides a wage
increase of 11.5 percent in the first 13 months, with
additional increases based on upcoming oil industry
bargaining. The contract also protects seniority rights and
preserves jobs and the union contract if the 100,000-barrel-
per-day oil refinery is sold.
"Our locked-out members stood tall for five years," said
PACE Local 4-277 Secretary-Treasurer Joe Campbell. "We
express our deep thanks to our international union for its
financial support and successful campaign, and to our PACE
members and locals who contri buted generously to our
hardship fund."
Local 4-277 President Mack Hickerson expressed the workers'
appreciation to "the thousands of labor, civil-rights,
religious and environmental activists who rallied around our
cause and gave life to our campaign."
The union also had high praise for the Norwegian oil
workers' union NOPEF and the 20-million-strong International
Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers'
Unions (ICEM) for their solidarity.
NOPEF President Lars Myhre, who chairs ICEM's energy
section, had pressured oil transnational Statoil about
Crown's dismal labor record, prompting Statoil to cancel its
refining deal with Crown. This forced Crown to reach a
settlement with the locked-out workers in hopes of recouping
the Statiol contract--which accounts for 35 percent of its
Pasadena operation.
"Lars Myhre's visit to our locked-out workers in Pasadena,
Texas, and his acts of international solidarity will long be
remembered," said PACE Executive Vice President Robert
Wages.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
QUEBEC CITY, CANADA
Is A20 the next protest date?
By G. Dunkel
The third summit meeting of the Free Trade Area of the
Americas is scheduled for April 20-22 in Quebec City,
Canada.
The FTAA project would open the economies of 20 states in
the Western Hemisphere (with the exception of Cuba),
representing 800 million people and a yearly economic output
of $11 trillion, to greater exploitation by U.S. finance
capital by the year 2005.
While this goal is disguised as removing "trade barriers"
and so on, the U.S. will control the FTAA just like it
controls NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Association.
A large meeting of 10,000 activists held the last weekend of
January in Porto Alegre, Brazil, called for massive,
worldwide protests at the Quebec City summit. Porto Alegre
was conceived as a progressive alternative to the Davos,
Switzerland, conference of the world's big capitalists.
A resolution in Porto Alegre urged anyone who could to join
the Quebec City protests.
Organizing against the FTAA summit has already started. A
parallel people's conference is scheduled, The Canadian
Federation of Students and other progressive groups are
trying to line up churches and schools for temporary
housing, and have reserved buses from Montreal and Toronto.
The Canadian government has begun putting up over a mile of
barbed-wire fence around the site of the meeting in the Old
City of Quebec. Months ago it said, "We do not want to see a
new Seattle in Quebec."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EYEWITNESS IRAQ: 4TH IRAQ SANCTIONS CHALLENGE RETURNS
By Deirdre Sinnott
When the wheels of Royal Jordanian Flight 6874 touched the
ground at Saddam International Airport in Baghdad, Iraq, on
Jan 13, a piece of history was written.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and 50 delegates
from the Iraq Sanctions Challenge had flown from the United
States to Iraq.
This act of solidarity and international civil disobedience
comes at a time of increased U.S. saber rattling and
bombings against Iraq.
This Iraq Sanctions Challenge--the fourth such delegation--
included people from 15 U.S. states and seven countries
including Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Greece, Scotland, and
Palestine. Among the delegates were students, teachers,
longtime activists, social workers and lawyers.
The delegation did not apply for or receive permission from
either the U.S. State Department or the United Nations
Security Council's Sanctions Committee to fly to Iraq to
bring medicine and school supplies.
"We believe that the UN Sanctions Committee, whose job it is
to maintain the U.S./UN sanctions, is guilty of genocide and
therefore not fit to judge who should and shouldn't travel
to Iraq," said Gloria La Riva, co-director of the ISC.
According to reports from the UN's own organizations, the
sanctions that were imposed in August 1990 after Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait have killed over 1 million people. Most
of them were either elderly, chronically ill or under 5
years old.
The ISC delegates learned firsthand about the effects of the
sanctions.
They visited the Amariyah bomb shelter in a quiet middle-
class neighborhood. This shelter had been filled mostly with
women and their children when it was destroyed by two "smart
bombs" in the early morning hours of Feb 13, 1991. Many
people had sought a safe refuge from the intensive allied
bombings.
Hundreds were incinerated instantly in an act the United
States still calls "justified."
At the Saddam Hospital for Children, delegates learned that
the UN 661 committee--the group that oversees all contracts
under the Oil-for-Food Program--had just denied the right to
purchase blood bags. Personnel at the hospital, which has
360 full beds, have to hand wash blood bags, disposable
syringes and catheters.
Delegates toured a food distribution center. The center is
part of Iraq's A-rated rationing system that, begun four
days after the sanctions were imposed, has prevented mass
starvation.
The rationing system allows each person per month: 3 kg.
rice, 3 kg. flour, 2 kg. sugar, 1.25 kg. oil and 150 grams
tea, salt, pepper, beans and soap. In addition, infants
receive eight cans of milk and two cans of baby food. People
supplement this diet with foods from the markets.
DEPLETED URANIUM & DESTRUCTION
An investigating team from part of the delegation found
"extremely high levels of radioactivity" in soil samples in
the Iraqi desert south of Basra. In that region, during the
1991 war against Iraq, U.S. forces fired hundreds of
thousands of shells reinforced with depleted uranium.
Ramsey Clark and New Mexican activist and researcher Damacio
Lopez recorded the radioactivity. On Jan. 19, Clark reported
his team's findings of high radiation levels at a news
conference at the Italian Parliament in Rome.
Clark condemned the Pentagon's use of DU weapons in Iraq and
Yugoslavia. He demanded that scientists from these countries
be included in the investigation of DU's dangers to humans.
The delegates also traveled to the Al Wathba water treatment
plant on the Tigris River. The plant serves 35 percent of
Baghdad.
It needs 10 metric tons of chlorine per month to properly
clean the water. But only three metric tons per month are
allotted.
Most illnesses seen in the hospitals are due to drinking
improperly treated water. The plant is deteriorating. Pumps
and other equipment are badly in need of replacement.
The Rostamia Sewage Treatment Plant is also on the Tigris.
It was built in 1963 and is badly in need of an overhaul.
Only 40 to 50 percent of the machinery and pumps work on any
given day. Workers must continuously repair equipment.
The UN 661 Committee denied a contract for safety equipment
like masks, gloves, and protective clothing. Workers have
been killed and injured attempting to make repairs.
Sometimes, delegates were told, because of these and other
problems, untreated sewage gets dumped directly into the
Tigris. This causes an environmental hazard and more water
problems and illness down river.
Parts to repair the machinery at both the sewage and water
treatment plants have been on order for years, frozen by the
661 Committee.
END THE SANCTIONS NOW!
In 1995, when the "Oil-for-Food" deal was originally
proposed, the Iraqi government opposed it, saying that it
could provide for its own people if it was given control of
its economy. "Oil-for-Food" has proven to be a financial
bonanza for many--with the notable exception of Iraq and its
people.
According to a report by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,
from December 1996 to July 2000, $32 billion dollars of oil
was sold. Only $8 billion reached Iraq--roughly $7 per
person.
Instead, 30 percent of the $32 billion went to "compensate"
Kuwait and several major U.S. oil corporations. $1.5 billion
went to maintain UN operations like the UN Compensation
Commission and the defunct spy operation UNSCOM.
UNSCOM was supposedly investigating "weapons of mass
destruction." Instead it was planting powerful listening
devices and coordinating targeting for U.S. and British
bombing operations.
$12 billion are frozen in the Bank of Paris. $3.5 billion
has been allocated for contracts that the 661 Committee has
yet to approve--for electrical, health, culture, education,
water and other needs.
Delegates also met with Dr. Manal Younis Abdul Razaq, the
head of the Iraqi Federation of Women, the ministers of
trade and health, and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
There were also visits to elementary schools, the school for
the blind and Moustaserya University. Delegates sampled
Iraqi culture at the Baghdad Museum. They visited the
ancient site of Babylon, a 12th Century mosque, and a
minaret built around 800 C.E.
After flying from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, half the
delegation stayed in Amman. There they visited the Wahadat
Palestinian Refugee Camp and met with notables from the
Palestinian struggle like Leila Khaled of the Palestine
National Council and the Palestinian Women's Federation.
Khaled attracted world attention to the plight of the
Palestinian people when she led a dramatic hijacking of a
plane in 1969.
A high-level member of the Palestinian National Congress,
Mr. Caswer Cuba, briefed the delegates on the state of the
Israeli/Palestinian negotiations that were in progress.
[Deirdre Sinnott was co-director of the 4th Iraq Sanctions Challenge.]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FROM BAGDAD TO WASHINGTON: HELPING TO BRING A BRIGHT, SUNNY DAY
Special to Workers World
In January, the International Action Center's Fourth Iraq
Sanctions Challenge delivered over $1.5 million in medical
aid to the Iraqi people. The delegation was comprised of 50
delegates from seven countries and 15 states.
Ed Lewinson, Professor Emeritus of History at Seton Hall
University in New Jersey, has participated in every Iraq
Sanctions Challenge since it's inception. He has done so
with hundreds of others in protest of the deadly sanctions
against Iraq.
After his first Iraq Sanctions Challenge, Lewinson
contributed to the book "Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq
Live." In his essay, Lewinson said, "When the opportunity to
join the Iraq Sanctions Challenge arose in the spring of
1998, I felt that learning about conditions firsthand would
enable me to bear witness more effectively.
"I have been totally blind all my life. ... In Iraq as well
as going back and forth, delegates traveled in groups.
Sighted delegates gave me vivid descriptions of conditions.
... As I looked back on the trip, my blindness caused me no
special problems of which I was aware."
On that first trip, Lewinson "had hoped to meet with Iraqi
blind people and learn about conditions for them." While he
was unable to do so on his first trip, he finally found his
way to a school for the blind on another trip. He was able
to visit that same school a second time during the January
Challenge.
On Jan. 20, tens of thousands of demonstrators came together
in Washington to protest the inauguration of George W. Bush.
In just a few hours after returning from Iraq, Lewinson
boarded a bus from the NYC area bound for Washington to
participate in the counter-inaugural protest. Still clad in
clothing fit for desert weather, he made his way to the
heart of the IAC protest at Freedom Plaza where he braved
the hail and cold for hours.
When WW asked Lewinson what drove him to head right to
Washington after a 14-hour plane trip, he told us, "I felt
that I should go to both." He went on to say, "It showed the
strength of the IAC that they could organize the Sanctions
Challenge and the challenge to the inauguration at the same
time."
Lewinson--and his guide dog, Hooper--is a regular volunteer
in the New York IAC office.
"I originally got involved with the IAC because I heard
about the National Peoples Campaign on the radio in the
spring of 1995," Lewinson said. "I stayed around because I
am impressed by how efficient the IAC is, what good
organizers they are and what a variety of issues they work
on."
Lewinson said he will continue to take part in the Iraq
Sanctions Challenge for as long as necessary. "I feel that I
should keep going until the sanctions are repealed,"
Lewinson said.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS U.S. TRIES TO STOP IT:
PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE GAINS GROUND IN COLOMBIA
By Andy McInerney
Are the Colombian government and its U.S. backers prepared
to embark on total war against the people's movement? That
question hangs in the balance with the deadline--now February 4--for
the government to extend the cleared zone that has been used
for talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-
People's Army (FARC-EP).
Two years ago, after a string of political and military
victories by the FARC-EP, the Colombian government was
forced to begin talks with the country's oldest insurgency
to address the social causes of the decades-old violent
struggle. During this process, tens of thousands of
Colombian workers, peasants, students, and community leaders
were able to confront the government openly with their
demands and hopes for a new Colombia.
An essential condition for these talks has been the
Colombian government's withdrawal of all military and police
units from five municipalities in central Colombia. This
"cleared zone" is the only region of Colombia free from
death-squad violence.
In December, President Andres Pastrana extended the
withdrawal from the zone until Jan. 31. On Jan.30 he again
extended withdrawal but this time only for five days. This
new deadline is when Pastrana may decide to try to re-invade
the zone.
Sectors of Colombia's ruling elite and military high command
are clamoring to end the dialogs with the FARC-EP. While
significant ruling-class elements there still see the talks
as necessary--leaders of the ruling Conservative Party as
well as the head of the National Manufacturers Council
support extending the zone--Pastrana did deploy 3,100 troops
on the border of the zone in the week prior to the deadline.
The FARC-EP has stated numerous times that the end of the
zone would be the end of the dialog process. "In that case,"
warned FARC-EP Commander-in-Chief Manuel Marulanda,
"everything ends."
Despite Pastrana's saber-rattling, few believe that
Colombia's official armed forces is a match for the FARC-EP.
"The Colombian army does not have the capability yet to
conduct a successful all-out offensive," noted a report by
the U.S. think tank Stratfor. The Jan. 25 New York Times
quoted a U.S. "Congressional analyst" saying that "he
believed that the army was not ready to engage the rebels in
a large-scale operation."
What is driving Pastrana toward a military confrontation
that cannot be won? The $1.3 billion Pentagon military aid
package to the Colombian government, part of the so-called
Plan Colombia.
The U.S. government completed its shipment of 33 Huey attack
helicopters on Jan. 28, days before the deadline. Sixteen
more advanced Blackhawk helicopters are to be delivered in
July.
Nearly 500 U.S. military troops are on the ground in
Colombia, with elite Special Forces troops positioned just
18 miles from the combat zone, according to a Jan. 24
Associated Press report.
A massive military operation by U.S.-trained
counterinsurgency troops opened up in the southern Putumayo
province this month. Pilots indiscriminately spray peasants'
crops with deadly defoliants.
This offensive coincides with a paramilitary death squad
onslaught across the country--coordinated with the Colombian
army--that massacred 210 people between Dec. 16 and Jan. 19.
Survivors of the Jan. 17 massacre in El Chengue described
Colombian army helicopters monitoring the town in the days
before and the hours after the massacre. The military also
followed a now-standard practice of sealing the area,
allowing only the death squads into and out of the zone.
This is the impact of Plan Colombia.
A ZONE FOR THE ELN?
At the same time that Pastrana was backing away from the
talks with the FARC-EP, his government announced progress in
moving toward official talks with the National Liberation
Army (ELN). The ELN is a smaller revolutionary insurgency
that has been fighting the Colombian government since 1964.
Like the FARC-EP, the ELN has demanded a cleared zone to
hold talks. In informal meetings with government
spokespeople, the two sides have tentatively agreed on a
zone in northern Colombia near the oil-producing city of
Barrancabermeja. However, paramilitary groups allied with
big landowners in the area have waged a terror campaign
against the zone.
Whether or not such a process takes place remains to be
seen. If such a process did open up and progress was made
toward a National Convention, as the ELN is proposing, it
would be another step forward in putting the Colombian
government on the defensive politically.
Progress toward this end will depend ultimately on the
strength of the ELN in relation to the government, both
politically and militarily. The advances made by the FARC-EP
have been due to their position of strength in the process.
But the timing of the government's agreement to a zone for
the ELN--officially announced on Jan. 29, two days before
the deadline for the FARC-EP's zone--puts the Pastrana
regime's credibility very much in doubt. The Colombian
government is clearly trying to divide the revolutionary
forces, pitting the "good" insurgency (today, the ELN) that
is willing to make "reasonable" concessions against the
"bad" insurgency, the FARC-EP.
The ELN and the FARC-EP, despite different histories, share
a desire for a revolutionary transformation of Colombian
society to favor the country's workers and peasants. In the
early 1990s the two groups talked jointly with the
government as part of the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla
Coordinating Committee. The two forces still work together
on specific military missions against government troops. But
tactical differences have so far prevented the two from
proposing a united dialog process with the government in the
current situation.
DANGER OF DIRECT U.S. INTERVENTION
The danger of direct U.S. intervention in this volatile
political crisis grows daily.
The new U.S. president, George Bush, is trying to deny the
prospect of U.S. troops on Colombian battlefields. "We have
to be very cautious not to send too many troops and have
them get involved in combat," Bush told reporters on Jan.
26. "There is a fine line between training and combat. I
support training and aid." (Miami Herald, Jan. 27)
That is an echo of Clinton's "This is not a new Vietnam."
The deployment of U.S. troops into combat against the
Colombian people, should it take place, will not be because
of the will of individual politicians or generals. It will
be a result of the cycle of intervention required to
maintain political and economic exploitation over Colombia
and Latin America--a fundamental feature of U.S.
imperialism.
Should the Colombian government decide to invade the zone
cleared for talks with the FARC-EP, it will face a powerful
political and military opponent with the backing of millions
of Colombian workers and peasants. It's own spokespeople--in
Colombia and in Washington--admit that it cannot win. That
will require U.S. troops to come to the rescue of the
corrupt, death squad regime.
Should the Colombian government decide to extend the zone,
it opens the possibility for a rupture within the ruling
elite, with one side fearing the "apocalypse" of a total war
and the other counting on U.S. military aid to expand its
rule of terror. Such a split--a mortal danger in a period of
revolution--could only be mediated by U.S. political
intervention, backed by U.S. troops.
The possibility of a solution to the Colombian struggle that
favors the interests of the workers and peasants there will
depend on the determination and clear leadership of the
revolutionary insurgencies in Colombia combined with the
strength of anti-war and solidarity forces in the United
States and around the world.
