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From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
New Worker Online Digest
Week commencing 30th March, 2001.
1) Editorial - Ready to grab.
2) Lead story - US backs Israeli terror.
3) Feature article - Hands off our friends!
4) International story - Czech Communists condemn their craven government.
5) British news item - Talking over as tube war begins.
1) Editorial
Ready to grab.
IT must be very comforting for those who ponce their living off stocks and
shares to have the prospect a some new privatisation opportunities opening
up just as the world's stock markets are suffering from the onset of
recession in the United States.
As the jitters creep into the City of London and Wall Street, what could
be more welcome than the chance to invest in the relatively solid world of
public transport and essential services?
This is obviously a big factor in why the government is so intransigent
about its private/public plans for the London Underground -- despite the
clear desire of the people of London for a public service under public
ownership and democratic control. And it explains the determination of the
government to push ahead with its privatisation plans for air-traffic
control and what used to be the Post Office.
Londoners have already used the ballot box to show what they think -- the
future of the Tube was the largest single reason why Ken Livingstone had
the active support of many Labour Party members and easily won the Mayoral
contest.
But clearly we need, as always, to do rather more than just vote --
Livingstone needs vociferous support for his stand against the big guns of
the Government/City machine and the would-be Tube speculators.
The London Underground unions have picked up the baton of this particular
struggle -- now we need to take it on as well by giving them our full
support and adding our voices to the campaign.
In the same way the fight needs to be stepped up over the future of air
traffic control -- a service where safety must never be compromised and
where the very highest standards must be maintained -- this means saying NO
to any "Railtrack" of the skies! Keep air traffic control public!
Postal delivery services are now up for grabs. This means there is an
immediate need to put the government under pressure to protect jobs, to
keep prices to customers pegged-down and to protect services to rural areas.
*********************
2) Lead story
US backs Israeli terror.
by Our Middle East Affairs Correspondent
ISRAELI gunships are attacking Gaza City and Ramallah in a new wave of
terror to try and stifle the mounting Palestinian offensive which left five
Zionists dead and scores more wounded in a week of resistance bombings and
guerrilla attacks.
At the United Nations Security Council the Americans vetoed a proposal to
send an international observer force to occupied Palestine to help protect
the Palestinian Arabs and in the Jordanian capital of Amman Arab kings,
princes and presidents heard Syria's new leader, Bashir al Assad compare
the Zionist entity to Nazi Germany.
US bails out stooge
At United Nations Headquarters the United States vetoed a non-aligned
resolution calling for the despatch of unarmed observer force to the
occupied territories. The motion was backed by People's China, Russia,
Bangladesh, Columbia, Jamaica, Mali, Mauritius, Singapore, and Tunisia.
Britain, France, Ireland and Norway abstained and Ukraine did not vote.
Palestinian MP Hanan Ashrawi warned that if the United States continued to
prevent any international intervention there would be more loss of life.
Racist Israel
Back in Amman, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat repeated his call for
an international force to protect the Palestinian civilians under Israeli
oppression and accused Israel of using depleted uranium weapons against
them.
There senior delegations from the 22 members of the Arab League including
15 leaders tried to forge a common front in the facing of mounting anger on
the Arab street at the persecution of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel.
And they heard UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on one hand condemn
Israel's "collective punishment" of the Palestinians and its "excessively
harsh response" to the new intifada while bleating that "these points could
be made more effectively if many Israelis did not believe that their
existence was under threat". Syrian President Bashir al Assad scorned those
who might want to give Israel's Sharon government the benefit of the doubt.
Sharon "is a killer and a man who hates Arabs" Assad said. "He hates
everything that has to do with Arabs. How can anyone convince Arabs that
the Israeli street wants peace?"
"Sharon needs time?" he mimicked. "Time to kill more Arabs."
Israel is "a racist society, a society more racist than the Nazis," the
Syrian leader told the summit. But "history is on our side. Every Israeli
knows that he does not own this land. This is Arab land".
summit
On the Arab street no-one expects much from the summit -- the first for
eleven years -- though the fact that it took place at all was a victory in
itself. The Palestinians hope that at least the millions promised in aid
for the Palestinian Authority will eventually get delivered to the West
Bank and Gaza.
The Syrians and the other progressive Arab governments will try and get
the summit to back demands for a return to the economic boycott and
isolation of Israel until Tel Aviv withdraws from all the occupied
territories.
Resistance struggle
But on the Palestinian street the only dialogue now with the Zionists is
with guns and bombs. Israel was rocked by three bomb blasts this week --
two within six hours in occupied Jerusalem.
On Tuesday a powerful car bomb exploded near a shopping mall in southern
Jerusalem wounding several Israelis. Later that afternoon northern
Jerusalem was hit by a huge blast which wounded 31 more Israelis.
The next day another bomb killed three Zionists at a bus stop near the
Israeli town of Kfar Saba. At least one resistance fighter sacrificed
himself in the attack. Two other bombs planted in the port of Netanya and
Petah Tikva were discovered by the Israeli police on Wednesday and defused.
One attack in Jerusalem is believed to have been carried out by Islamic
Jehad the other two by the Muslim Brotherhood's (Hamas) military wing, the
Izzedin al Qassam brigades.
In a statement to the press the brigades said the actions had been carried
out by their elite unit 103 and they warned that there were "still seven
martyrs ready to strike and we have more."
Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance movements have vowed to
retaliate for the killing by the Israeli occupation army of more that 438
Palestinians, many of them children or teenagers, since the outbreak of the
intifada. Some 66 Israelis have also been killed by resistance actions over
the past six months.
"The confrontation is expanding because of the policies announced by
Sharon while he is launching an all-out war against the Palestinian
people," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo warned.
All the Arabs know that the Zionists are to blame for the wave of violence
sweeping across Palestine. Now the Zionists are discovering that violence
is not a one-way street.
**********************
3) Feature article
Hands off our friends!
by Renee Sams
LABOUR MP Diane Abbott last week admitted that on the issue of immigration
and asylum seekers she is "ashamed of the Government's policy".
"It's not right, it's not necessary", she told a rally in Trafalgar Square
last Saturday. "We remain one of the richest countries in the world and we
should behave in a more principled way towards those in need of asylum."
The 2,000-strong Hands Off My Friend rally was organised by the National
Assembly Against Racism on United Nations Day Against Racism.
A letter was delivered to the Prime Minister calling on the Government to
change its policy on immigration and asylum.
Actor Kevin Whately -- who played Sergeant Lewis in the popular TV
detective series Morse -- added his voice to this call.
"We must welcome these people," he said. "This is a humanitarian question
more than a political issue."
Paul MacNey. general secretary of the lecturers' union, Natfhe, told the
rally that his father had helped Jewish people escape from Nazi oppression
in Nazi Germany in the thirties. "Now I am doing the same," he said.
"I want to keep racism out of the general election but not to keep asylum
seekers out. I want to hear all candidates in the general election welcome
asylum seekers here."
Also giving his full support to the Hands Off My Friend was Roger
Sainsbury, the Bishop of Barking. He reported that when the campaign was
taken to an east London school it has been "enthusiastically embraced".
They were joined on the platform by Jeremy Corbyn MP, who called on
everybody: "Don't allow the general election to become some awful auction
with asylum seekers as pawns in the competition."
He was also concerned about the number of immigrants and asylum seekers
held in detention.
Government policy of deterring asylum seekers from entering the country is
coming under increasing attack and there have been demonstrations by
campaign groups outside the Harmondsworth and Campsfield detention centres
and prisons such as Belmarsh and Haslar where asylum seekers are held
behind bars.
Many from those campaign groups were present at the Trafalgar Square rally.
Over 1,500 people are locked up in detention camps in Britain, two thirds
of them held under prison conditions. And they are there for months,
sometimes for years and they have no right to bail.
Yet, as Jeremy Corbyn said, "Not one of them is a criminal".
Helen Bamber, the director of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of
Torture, said: "I want to change the image of asylum seeker; as the Daily
Mail sees them."
She told ofa young child who can no longer speak. The girl had withstood
the loss of her parents, torture and abuse. But the treatment she received
here when she came expecting asylum was the last straw.
"Her belief in democracy was crushed by brutality," said Helen Bamber,
"and we are compounding the brutality by our treatment of asylum seekers."
Another asylum seeker had been forced to flee the Middle East after being
assaulted and ill treated only to be attacked by racist thugs in London.
"If our leaders are silent in the face of all this, then it is up to us to
do something about it." And she warned: "What begins with racist propaganda
could end in annihilation."
*************************
4) International story
Czech Communists condemn their craven government.
by the International Department of the KSCM
In the name of human rights, the USA set out to overthrow a communist
regime in Afghanistan which had built thousands of schools, hospitals and
factories, uprooted feudalism, given equal rights to women and tried to
modernise and develop Afghan society. Its allies in this struggle were the
Taliban and people like Usam Bin Ladin. The Americans established military
bases for them in Pakistan and supplied them with weapons, instructors and
millions of dollars. They called the Taliban terrorists "rebels" and
"mujhadeen" (fighters in a holy war).
After the break-up of the socialist camp in Europe, the Taliban "liberated"
Afghanistan by hanging communists from trees, closing down schools
(especially girls’ schools) and restoring feudalism. Most recently, they
have destroyed cultural riches which belonged not only to Afghanistan but
to the whole of humanity. But today, as the eyes of the whole world are on
these barbarians, hardly anybody remembers that it was these selfsame
"friends" of the USA who helped it in its "struggle for human rights" in
Afghanistan.
In the name of human rights the USA also waged an aggressive war against
the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, using depleted uranium weapons and
wrecking its economy, the environment and the lives of its people.
In the name of human rights, the USA has been blockading the small island
of Cuba for over 40 years. Here too it has its "mujhadeen". Using methods
like direct military intervention, invasions by Miami-based "mujhadeen", an
economic, trade and financial embargo, bacteriological warfare and
assassination attempts on Cuban leaders, it has tried to impose its will on
the Cuban people and undermine a socialist system which they supported in a
referendum. All to no avail.
Before the revolution, life in Cuba was like that in any other poor
developing country: 80-90% illiteracy, a one-crop agricultural economy,
dependence on the USA, and rule by a dictatorship which tortured and
summarily executed its opponents.
Cuba long ago ceased to be a backward country relying on handouts from US
sailors. Today its health care, education and social security are
comparable with that provided in the advanced countries. Cuba gives medical
and educational aid to many nations in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa
and Asia. The revolution in Cuba has made it possible for human rights to be
realised not only in the social, economic and cultural spheres but also in
civic and political life.
Real democracy and popular participation are guaranteed in Cuba, despite
the threat posed by the USA. Any citizen can be nominated as a candidate in
elections, and he does not need to support his candidacy with a deposit or
thousands of signatures, as required in many capitalist countries, notably
the USA. Elected bodies are fully accountable to the voters at report-back
meetings and voters exercise their right to recall elected
representatives. Participation in elections is voluntary and a high
percentage of voters use their right to vote.
In Saudi Arabia there is no elected legislature and no legal political
parties, apart from the ruling party. Anyone accused of communism would
face his end without even a trial. In Kuwait women cannot vote or be
elected. In Turkey a third of the population, the Kurds, have no cultural
or political rights. There are almost 70,000 political prisoners in Turkish
prisons. The secret police murder opponents of the social democratic
government in the street. Police arrest women for celebrating International
Women’s Day.
There are many similar states which, unlike Cuba, uphold capitalism as the
best of all social systems. Their oil and other riches benefit the USA and
world capitalism, since the revenues from these are deposited in US banks
or spent on arms. They allow US military bases on their soil. Unlike Cuba,
they are loyal servants of the USA and have no problems with the USA – or
its alter ego, the foreign ministry of the Czech Republic!
When tabling resolutions on human rights in Cuba, the USA inevitably met
with opposition from developing countries which were members of the UN
Human Rights Commission. So it decided to enrol the services of suitably
servile governments to help it achieve its aims. The governments chosen
were Poland and, unfortunately, the Czech Republic.
This year Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan has tabled another draft
resolution condemning "human rights violations in Cuba", which includes a
critical reference to US economic sanctions against Cuba. Poland, however,
has declined the honour of co-sponsoring this hypocritical resolution. The
Czech government tabled similar resolutions in 1999 and 2000, but before
they were passed Kavan agreed to the withdrawal of the critical references
to US sanctions.
Kavan now boasts that at the UN General Assembly last September he "spoke
out about the need for targeted sanctions – not only against Cuba, but
against Libya and Milosevic’s Yugoslavia as well." The fact that Kavan
favours targeted sanctions while the USA prefers across-the-board sanctions
is neither here nor there, since one key question remains unanswered: who
gives the USA and Kavan the right to impose sanctions? What is abundantly
clear is that Kavan does not
want action taken against US allies.
Even though the anti-Cuban resolution expresses doubts about the
unilateral US embargo, it is essentially anti-Cuban, servile and selective.
If our government really wasn’t a US puppet, it would have tabled a
resolution condemning human rights violations in Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait and Israel.
Kavan says he consulted his US partners about the text of this year’s Czech
resolution. So why all the fuss about the critical reference to US
sanctions in this year’s resolution when the resolutions in 1999 and 2000
included similar criticism? Why has Powell, the US foreign secretary,
complained to Havel about the Czech government’s resolution. The answer is
simple.
George W.Bush, the new US president, wants to be seen as taking a harder
line on Cuba without depriving Kavan of his room to manoeuvre on the
domestic political scene. Kavan is not anxious to be seen as toadying to
the USA.
However, the US administration is by no means certain that it is standing
on firm ground with this year’s Czech resolution.
*********************
5) British news item
Talking over as tube war begins.
TALKS between the Government, the London Underground management and
London's Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley -- appointed by Mayor Ken
Livingstone, broke down completely last Monday.
Now the Government's plans to partially privatise the Tube in a public
private partnership (PPP) will be challenged in the courts and by
industrial action from London Underground workers.
The sticking point all along has been safety. Mr Kiley, the Health and
Safety Executive and the unions all agree the breaking up of the Tube under
different administrations will make it less safe.
Bob Kiley has insisted that unified overall control be maintained and that
he should have power to enforce safety measures on a day to day basis.
The companies wanting to bid to run parts of the Tube do not want such
close control over their operations which they say will hamper their
chances of maximising profits.
Ken Livingstone has already referred the issue to the courts for a
judicial review of the Government's decision.
Ata public rally in Croydon on Tuesday night he was asked whether or not
he thought this was futile and that the judge would be pressured by the
Government.
He replied that this could not be assumed. "A rail crash above ground is
bad enough. One underground is another story completely," he said.
He pointed out that the tunnels were less accessible to rescue operations
by emergency services and that fires can easily rage out of control in
tunnels and said that this would give any judge second thoughts before
hastily endorsing an unsafe system.
As we go to press the RMT transport union is set to stage a one-day strike
on Thursday. The drivers' union Aslef is not directly involved in the
action this time but it is expected that few drivers will cross RMT picket
lines.
A one-day strike by Aslef last month paralysed all modes of transport in
London.
The Government has repeatedly accused Mr Kiley and the unions of
scaremongering over the safety issue. But it has not accused the Health and
Safety Executive of doing the same after it produced a report raising
nearly 300 points of serious concern over safety in the PPP proposals.
Mr Kiley said the PPP proposal "defies the basic diktat of common sense
and repeats the problems of Hatfield. This is not value for money and that
is probably why this system is not evident anywhere in the world."
He pointed out the PPP plans are dangerous because they involve separating
the responsibility for maintenance from the running of the trains.
overwhelming backing
Ken Livingstone endorsed Mr Kiley's position, saying: "I believe Bob Kiley
has the overwhelming backing of Londoners to take whatever action he feels
is appropriate to ensure he is able to run a safe Tube network.
"Bob Kiley is one of the world's greatest experts in managing underground
railways. He has reported to me that the Government's PPP plans in their
present form fragment the management of the underground, increase the risk
to passengers and make it impossible for me to meet my statutory obligation
to provide a safe, integrated and economic transport system for London. I
take that advice seriously. Mr Kiley also warned that the fabric of the
Tube network has deteriorated so much that safety is a major issue now in
any case.
"There comes a point" he said, "with the physical deterioration and the
level of management distraction where safety rears its head.
"It is getting as bad in a hurry as the New York City subway when I took
it over and that was tipping into the abyss of unsafety."
A serious incident on the Tube's Metropolitan Line at Baker Street
station, which is being investigated by the HSE, highlighted his points.
Last Friday a packed train began to leave the station after the driver saw
a green Light. This light then changed to red. The driver pulled up hastily
and only just avoided a collision with another train just a short distahce
ahead.
Since then a signaller has reported that there was something wrong with
the system relating to the Lack of skilled signals engineers and this is
being investigated by the HSE.
The station and Metropolitan Line were then closed all day while
investigations took place as to why the signal had been showing green when
it should have been red.
*********************
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