5) Los Angeles Solidarity with Palestine
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6) World Conference Condemns Racism
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7) Support Teamster Brother Ron Carey
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
L.A. RALLY APPEALS TO GLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT: "STEP
UP SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE"
By Preston Wood
Los Angeles
A crowd of over 300 people filled Merrifield Hall at Loyola
Law School in Los Angeles to overflowing Aug. 25 in a great
outpouring of support for Palestinian people facing the
brutal U.S.-armed Israeli state. This was despite efforts by
Zionists to force Loyola to cancel the forum.
The Free Palestine Coalition, made up of more than 50
organizations, sponsored the event. Its principles of unity
are: stop U.S. aid to Israel; end Israeli apartheid; the
right of return for the Palestinians to their homes of
origin; and Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza.
Preston Wood of the Free Palestine Coalition and
International Action Center chaired the event. Michel
Shehadeh, Western regional director of the American Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee and co-chair of the Save the
Iraqi Children Coalition of Los Angeles--and also one of the
pro-Palestine activists facing deportation known as the LA 8-
-was the featured speaker.
Shehadeh called for increased solidarity with Palestine by
those in the progressive and anti-globalization movement. He
emphasized the need to organize opposition to the billions
of dollars in U.S. aid that funds the Israeli campaign of
terror and assassination against the leaders and rank and
file of the Palestinian movement in the occupied
territories.
Other speakers included Maceo Shabaka of the All African
People's Revolutionary Party, Carol Smith of the National
Lawyers Guild, Layla Welborn of the Bus Riders Union of LA,
Connie White of the Black Radical Congress and John Parker
of the IAC. The video "People and the Land,"which documents
the day-to-day suffering of the Palestinian people under
Israeli occupation, was shown. After the video showing
members of the audience continued the discussion of how to
broaden the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian
people.
Referring to the imperialist organizations that coordinate
international trade and finance, Wood explained that
"globalization is not only the expansion of corporate power
through the policies of the IMF, WTO and FTAA. It can also
mean war. Specifically, it means the ongoing illegal
occupation and war against the people of Palestine. ...
"We need to see the solidarity struggle with the
Palestinians in the context of the anti-globalization
struggle and make sure it is included at the top of the
agenda of all anti-globalization activities. Unity and
solidarity will make our movement strong."
- END -
(Copyright 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:
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 6. syyskuu 2001 05:52
Subject: [WW] World Conference Condemns Racism
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS U.S., ISRAEL WALK OUT: WORLD CONFERENCE
CONDEMNS RACISM
By Cecil Williams
Durban, South Africa
"Stop U.S. racism all over the world!"
That was the chant of U.S. participants in the World
Conference Against Racism as they marched on the
International Convention Center here Aug. 3. They were
protesting the Bush admin i stra tion's decision to withdraw
from the United Nations-spon sored event. The State
Department's representatives had earlier failed to show up
at their own press conference for fear of having to face
hundreds of outraged U.S. nongovernmental delegates.
Seven thousand delegates from every corner of the earth have
come to this port city on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
They are here to speak out about racism and oppression. They
were welcomed Sept. 1 by a march of 100,000 South African
workers, organized by the Congress of South African Trade
Unions. They were greeted by 20 heads of state and
government, including Fidel Castro, Yasir Arafat and South
Africa's own Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki addressed the conference one day after the death of
his father, Goven Mbeki, 91, a founder of the African
National Congress who had been imprisoned on Robben Island
with Nelson Mandela.
The Bush administration walked out on all of them. Israel
followed.
The U. S. State Department said the conference had sinned by
"suggesting that Israel practices apartheid." Israeli
spokespeople called the huge multinational gathering "part
of a Palestinian political offensive." The corporate-owned
media echoed that line.
It is clear to any observer here that most WCAR participants
do identify with the Palestinian people. That sentiment was
also expressed by the South African workers who marched
Saturday. Israel materially supported white-minority rule in
South Africa, and the similarities between apartheid and
Israeli racism are well known here.
But many delegates feel that the prime motive for the U.S.
walkout was to avoid facing the issue of reparations for
slavery and colonialism. The State Department made it clear
before the conference that if the transatlantic slave trade
were labeled a "crime against humanity," it would take its
bat and ball and go home.
U.S. WEALTH FOUNDED ON SLAVE TRADE
"The great wealth of the United States, as well as that of
many of its European allies, is founded on the transatlantic
slave trade, slavery and colonialism," said Adjoa Aiyetoro
of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom at
a press conference denouncing the U.S. withdrawal.
"In addition, the history of the United States is replete
with systemic, structural, oppressive and violent forms of
racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance. Yet the U.S. government has shown contempt and
disrespect for the millions of people of color in the United
States, especially Africans and African descendants, whose
representatives are here seeking redress for historic and
contemporary violations of their fundamental human rights.
"Moreover, the United States government has shown contempt
and disrespect for this World Conference against Racism from
its inception and contempt and disrespect for the democratic
process. It has rationalized its opposition to even a
discussion of reparations by unfairly linking it to the
demands of the Palestinian people that the national
oppression and racial discrimination visited upon them by
the state of Israel be condemned.
"We declare the U.S. government's claims to be bogus,
manipulative and insulting to the legitimate concerns of
millions of the world's people."
A statement by the United U.S. Nongovernmental Organizations
(NGOs) condemned "U.S.-Israeli extremism and its blatant but
failed attempt to hijack the agenda of this conference."
A five-day forum of nongovernmental organizations preceded
the "official" WCAR. That forum passed a resolution calling
slavery and colonization crimes against humanity, demanded
reparations for the people of Africa and their descendants
in the United States, and called for unconditional release
and amnesty for political prisoners in the United States.
That resolution was affirmed Sept. 2 at a press conference
of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus.
VOICES OF THE OPPRESSED
Washington sent only a low-level delegation to the WCAR to
begin with. The oppressed of the world are here in force.
Dalits, so-called "untouchables," from India. Roma people,
the so-called "Gypsies," from East Europe. Burakumein, the
"low-caste" people of Japan, and Ainu people from Hokkaido
Island.
Palestinians from refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank.
Pygmy people from Congo. Native people from the Americas,
Australia and New Zealand. Migrant workers from many
countries.
African Americans by the hundreds from the United States,
Brazil, the Caribbean and everywhere else in the Western
Hemisphere. People from all over Africa, including many
South African veterans of the struggle against apartheid.
People from every nation on earth, the majority of them
women.
There is Njeri Shakur of Houston, who came on behalf of the
Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement. "When he was
governor of Texas, George Bush executed 152 people," Njeri
said. "Some were innocent, like Shaka Sankofa. Some were
old, like Betty Lou Beets, a 62-year-old grandmother, a
battered woman, whom George Bush executed.
"Some were young, like Kamau Wilkerson. Most were people of
color, all were poor. Bush has gone forth from Texas; he's
now visiting his violence and contempt on the people of the
world. Well, we don't need his representatives here. We are
here to join together with people from all over the world
who are fighting the same enemy we are."
Ethel LeValle, aboriginal vice president of the Canadian
Labor Congress, came to raise the case of Native U.S.
political prisoners. "We're calling on the U.S. government
to free our brother, Leonard Peltier. It's been proven that
he was convicted on false information, and he's done 24
years. I'm also speaking on behalf of Dudley George, an
unarmed protester who was shot and killed in 1994 in
Ontario, and to this day the Canadian government will not
call an inquiry. This is discrimination and racism."
Orinthal Lumumba is here from New York City for the
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-
Jamal. "They want to execute Mumia, an innocent man, for no
other reason than that he spoke out against their brutal
system. Another man, Arnold Beverly, confessed to the crime
of which he was convicted, and they still want to execute
him. But they are the criminals. The Philadelphia police
bombed the MOVE house in Philadelphia, killing 11 members of
my family, including babies. The Pentagon killed one million
Iraqi babies. They have no right to execute anybody."
Sharon Eolis of the International Action Center in the U.S.
was angered by the U.S.-Israeli efforts to depict solidarity
with Palestine as "anti-Semitism." "I'm Jewish, and I
support Palestine. Israel doesn't speak for me. It
represents the interests of the Pentagon and U.S. oil
companies. Jewish people should look twice when the 'old-
boy' bigots who run the Bush administration claim to
champion our interests."
The U.S. and several West European governments pressured the
UN leadership to stifle such voices. Appointed UN High
Commissioner Mary Robinson did her best. "Insider working
groups" were set up to edit conference documents. Arbitrary
last-minute restrictions were placed on NGO delegates, and
UN cops harassed some delegates. But they couldn't stop the
conference from turning into an international demonstration
against global injustice and inequality.
CASTRO: 'USE CORPORATE AD DOLLARS TO PAY
REPARATIONS'
Twenty heads of state and government spoke, including Fidel
Castro, Yasir Arafat and Mbeki.
"'After the purely formal slavery emancipation, African
Americans were subjected during 100 more years to the
harshest racial discrimination, and many of its features
still persist,'' Castro told the conference. ''Cuba speaks
of reparations, and supports this idea as an unavoidable
moral duty to the victims of racism.'' He called for the $1
trillion spent every year on corporate advertising to be
spent instead on reparations to the poor of the world.
Castro also addressed a rally of thousands of African
National Congress members in a Durban stadium Sept. 1. Cuba
is loved here for the aid it gave to the South African
popular struggle against racist apartheid rule.
"We say no to the continuation of the injustices of the
past," Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told a
WCAR plenary Sept. 3. "The relationship of compensation to
liberation is important to us in several respects."
Chinamasa told how British colonists robbed Zimbabweans of
their land and livestock, destroyed their homes and
subjected them to forced labor, all without compensation.
Chinamasa described how his government is trying to redress
the colonial legacy by land redistribution inside Zimbabwe.
He called on the conference to "come out emphatically in
favor of a declaration of reparations."
Chinamasa's words were met with a loud standing ovation from
the nongovernmental delegates.
"The world has seen many horrors, whole nations have been
exterminated, but no one has suffered so much as the people
of Africa," said Libyan Foreign Minister Ali Treiki. "It
began when white men herded millions of Africans into slave
ships for forced labor in the Western Hemisphere. We must
adopt clear resolutions and unambiguous recommendations to
compensate African people for colonialism and slavery. We
can only be fully free today if we receive such compensation
and a clear apology."
Treiki called imposing famine by means of sanctions a form
of racism. "Sanctions have killed one million Iraqi
children," he said. Speaking of U.S. bombing of Iraq and
Sudan and Israeli atrocities in Palestine, he said, "There
are no safeguards for human rights in a world where there
are oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, rich and
poor."
U.S. TRIES TO DERAIL CONFERENCE
In an interview the morning of Sept. 3, Elombe Brath of the
Patrice Lumumba Coalition and the December 12 Movement said
that the U.S. and several West European powers had held a
meeting at the Durban Hilton to work on the final conference
language. No African or Asian countries were invited. He
told how the U.S. had granted $5 million in aid to the
government of Senegal the very day it reversed its position
on reparations. "But most African countries are standing
strong and talking about reparations, contrary to the
impression given by the media."
That night the U.S. walked out.
Brath is one of the Durban 400, African descendants from the
United States who are here to lobby for reparations. The
group is united around three principles: declaration of the
transatlantic slave trade, slavery and colonialism as crimes
against humanity; recognition of the economic base of
racism, and reparations for the people of Africa and their
descendants in the Americas.
SLAVERY LIVES IN U.S. PRISONS
Sam Jordan of the International Concerned Friends and Family
of Mumia came here to work for a resolution in support of
framed political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Lynchings and
slavery are not a thing of the past, he said. "The U.S. has
5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the
world's prison population," he continued. "Sixty percent are
people of color and at least 250,000 are wrongfully
convicted because of prosecutorial misconduct.
"Many, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, languish on death row in spite
of their presentation of exculpatory evidence, which the
racist U.S. courts refuse to admit into the judicial record
or order their release. This is part of the heritage of
slavery, and the demand for reparations includes relief for
the wrongfully convicted."
Johnnie Stevens and other members of the U.S.-based
International Action Center came to Durban with the
delegation for Mumia. "We don't know whether or not the
final declaration of this conference will reflect the
sentiments expressed by the majority of people here. But
whatever is written on the official stationery, this
conference is historic," said Stevens.
"It will do for the issue of reparations what Seattle,
Prague and Genoa did for the issue of globalization. Whether
you talk about repaying Africans and their descendants for
centuries of unpaid labor and suffering, or the right of the
Palestinian people to return to their land seized by Israel,
you are raising the concept that the rich are rich because
the poor are poor and that stolen wealth must be returned.
"That concept does not divide us, it unifies us. And that
terrifies Corporate America."
- END -
(Copyright 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: torstai 6. syyskuu 2001 05:52
Subject: [WW] Support Teamster Brother Ron Carey
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 13, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BEWARE BUSH AND THE GOVERNMENT: SUPPORT
TEAMSTER BROTHER RON CAREY
By Milt Neidenberg
Retired Teamster
New York
It's a tragic irony of history that during the Labor Day
season, when tens of thousands of labor unionists are
marching, one of the most outstanding labor leaders of this
stormy period is standing in the dock, innocent and alone,
defending himself against a powerful array of government
inquisitors who are charging him with crimes he never
committed.
It's a frame-up!
Ron Carey, former president of the powerful 1.4 million-
member Teamsters union, is currently on trial in U.S.
Federal District Court in New York. He was indicted on seven
counts, charged with fundraising improprieties during his
1996 campaign for re-election.
Conviction could mean a sentence of 35 years on each count.
He is not charged with personally embezzling any union
funds. The allegation is that he knew of a laundering scheme
to aid his re-election campaign and lied to federal
investigators, election monitors and a federal grand jury
about it.
Carey passionately denies that he knew about such a scheme.
Progressive labor unionists should recognize what happened
for what it was: a plan figured out by a few non-Teamster
promoters, hired to run Carey's 1996 presidential campaign,
to use union funds as seed money to get contributions from
the Democratic Party.
Carey says he did not know the laundered money came
originally from the union treasury. The promoters are now
serving jail time.
GOV'T INTERVENTION BEGAN IN 1989
Who is behind these trumped-up charges against Carey? The
U.S. government began hounding the Teamsters union in 1989.
The campaign was launched by Judge David Edelstein and the
federal district court in New York, then-U.S. Attorney Rudy
Giuliani, the FBI, and a battery of prosecutors and
investigators.
It began with a full-court press by the government to take
over the union. They used the infamous anti-union
racketeering and corruption statute known as RICO to force
the Teamsters to sign a consent decree.
The decree granted the government and the courts
unprecedented power to take over the union and its then-1.5
million members. The enforcement language included changing
the Teamster constitution to give the government far-
reaching powers over elected Teamster officials--from local
unions all the way up to the president and the General
Executive Board.
The government representatives had the right to discipline
union officers and rank-and-file members, and appoint
trustees over local unions. They had the power to veto any
union expenditures and contracts, except collective
bargaining agreements.
They had the right to take over union meetings and
conferences, seize the minutes, examine the books and
records, and bring in "independent" auditors.
To add insult to this unprecedented and dangerous intrusion,
over the last decade the Teamsters have had to pay the
government puppets more than $100 million from the members'
dues for these "services."
Herein lie the Teamsters' nightmare and the background
behind the Carey frame-up. The relentless pursuit of Carey
is a warning to the entire labor movement.
If they can do it to the Teamsters and get away with it, any
union is fair game for these repressive state forces.
CAREY WON OFFICE AS A MILITANT REFORMER
Carey won the 1996 presidential contest against James P.
Hoffa fair and square. Even the election officer appointed
under the decree said so. She was later forced to resign
when the government overturned the results.
Carey, now banned by the government for life from any
contact with the union, began his Teamster career over 45
years ago when he took a job with United Parcel Service. In
1968, he was elected president of the 7,000-member Local
804.
He ran the local for over 20 years. He earned a well-
deserved reputation as a militant. He led the local in
several strikes that won higher wages and better conditions.
And he became a bitter opponent of the entrenched top
leaders when they developed a cozy relationship with UPS
bosses during regional and national contract negotiations.
He was a rebel with a cause when it came to representing the
rank and file.
What irked the government most was that later, when he
became Teamster international president in 1991, he opened a
scathing attack to end the consent decree. He waged an
ongoing campaign throughout his tenure to get the government
off the union's back.
Instead it intensified its control. The government ordered
Carey to accept the appointment of William Webster, a former
CIA and FBI director, to lead a three-member "Independent
Review Board" over the Teamsters. Carey charged him with
conflict of interests. Webster sat on the board of directors
of Anheuser-Busch, an arch-enemy of the workers that
negotiates contracts with the Teamsters. Webster was also on
the board of the Pinkerton Security and Investigations
Services, notorious in labor history as a strikebreaker.
But Carey's accusations were disregarded.
While the government strengthened its hold on the Teamsters,
Carey fought back. He initiated dramatic progressive changes
that built back the union from the bottom up.
He democratized the union, improved the grievance structure
and got rid of a bloated bureaucracy that double-dipped into
the union treasury to fatten their incomes. He increased
strike benefits for the members.
He encouraged participation of the rank and file in
innumerable ways that gave confidence to a work force that
was increasingly multinational, women and service-oriented.
VICTORY IN UPS STRIKE
Carey's crowning success was the unparalleled contract he
negotiated with an arrogant, uncooperative United Parcel
Service after a militant, well-organized strike. The UPS
workers eliminated a two-tier wage structure, won full-time
jobs for 10,000 part-time workers over a five-year span, and
won improvements in their benefits.
The UPS struggle, well-planned and executed by the rank and
file, should be a case study for the organized labor
movement.
Carey was a key player and strategist in the election of
John Sweeney to the leadership of the AFL-CIO in 1995.
Sweeney won the stewardship from previous President Lane
Kirkland, who had worked closely with the CIA and other anti-
communist institutions to purge progressive, class-
conscious, and militant unionists from leadership roles.
Carey was respected as a labor leader with the credentials
to take over the AFL-CIO upon the retirement of the elderly
Sweeney.
Behind the government's conspiracy to get Carey is a
political struggle that has serious implications for the AFL-
CIO leadership.
President George W. Bush has the most pro-big-business, pro-
corporate-banker administration in recent years. An Aug. 28
commentary by Micah Morrison, a senior Wall Street Journal
editorial page writer, called for the government to
investigate Carey's ties to three of the most powerful union
leaders in the country: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard
L. Trumka, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and Service
Employees President Andrew L. Stern.
Morrison wrote, "The Carey case remains a dagger pointed at
the highest levels of the labor movement."
In a 1998 letter to this reporter and many other Teamsters,
Carey confirmed this very concern. He wrote, "The government
is attempting to destroy the labor movement--as you know
it's not just the Teamster union but Labor and all working
American families."
Carey is not a socialist, nor does he denounce capitalism,
the system that spawns the very forces that are determined
to destroy him. But his experiences bring him to recognize
the class struggle.
The time is now for the AFL-CIO leadership and affiliates to
reach out to Carey, who has contributed so much to the labor
movement. His outstanding accomplishments should not be lost
in the crescendo of attacks from an anti-union, anti-worker
government, its courts and cops, which are hell-bent on the
demise of the best defenders of labor's rights in this
critical period of a growing capitalist recession.
- END -
(Copyright 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)
