[PEN-L:7454] (Fwd) 2142 FIJI: Newspapers call for calm in protest rally

[Bill Rosenberg]

Further developments in Fiji.

Bill Rosenberg
--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date:  Sun, 30 May 1999 14:19:12 +1200
From:  Journ12 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:   2142 FIJI:  Newspapers call for calm in protest rally
To:Pacific Media Watch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization:  Journalism, University of the South Pacific

Title -- 2142 FIJI:  Newspapers call for calm in protest rally
Date -- 30 May 1999
Byline -- None
Origin -- Pacific Media Watch
Source --  PMW, 30/5/99
Copyright -- PMW
Status -- Unabridged
---
NEWSPAPERS CALL FOR CALM IN PROTEST RALLY

* See PMW items 2140, 2137, 2129, 2124, 2122, 2099.

SUVA (PMW): Newspapers called for calm in a protest rally in the Fiji
Islands against the first government in the country's history headed
by an ethnic Indian prime minister while some indigenous Fijian
cabinet members branded the march as "irresponsible behaviour".

In an editorial on 29 May 1999, the Fiji Times warned against "a few
misguided hotheads" bent on causing trouble in the wake of this
month's landslide win of the Fiji Labour Party, supported by a
majority of all races.

"Let's be under no illusions here. Those few are dangerous people who
are driven by racism," the newspaper said.

"Unable to accept even the possibility that they could have something
to do with the state of the nation, they look for scapegoats."

The protest rally took place on May 29 with demands for the President,
Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, to resign for supporting the appointment of
Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

According to some newspaper estimates, there were more police than
protesters at the rally. The Daily Post said about 30 people took part
in the march while 100 police were present; the Fiji Times estimates
ranged between 100 and 150 protesters.

Deputy Prime Minister Adi Kuini Vuikaba Speed, the widow of the first
Labour Prime Minister, Dr Timoci Bavadra, deposed in a coup in 1987,
and now one of two indigenous Fijian deputy PMs in the new coalition
cabinet, accused organisers and supporters of the protest march of
displaying irresponsible behaviour after the government had been voted
in by a large majority.

"All they should do now is rally behind the government as we're ready
to deliver many good things to them," she said. "The people decided at
the poll which government they want to govern the country in the next
five years and their wish should be respected."

Nationalist Party leader Sakeasi Butadroka said in a letter to the
president quoted by the Fiji Times: "Why are the indigenous people of
Fiji denied their right to rule their own land? Besides, Indians don't
want Sonia Gandhi to rule them, Israel allows only a limited number of
Arabs as MPs, Germany's six million immigrants have limited political
rights, our Pacific Island brothers and sisters enjoy
self-determination, but we in Fiji are being denied this God-given
right."

A new constitution in 1997 restored political rights to ethnic Indians
who had second-class citizen status under a previous constitution
racially weighted in favour of indigenous Fijians.

Ethnic Indians comprise 46 per cent and indigenous Fijians 48 per cent
of Fiji's 780,000 population. Most Indo-Fijians are descendants of
indentured labourers brought to the Fiji Islands by the British
colonial administration last century.

+++niuswire

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[PEN-L:7466] (Fwd) Indictment of Milosevic a Cover for the Real Story - In

[ts99u-2.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.225]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Fri, 28 May 1999 14:01:07 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:Indictment of Milosevic a Cover for the Real Story -
International Action Center

From: "iacenter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999
Subject: CLINTON SENDING 90,000 GROUND TROOPS TO YUGOSLAVIA


Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War
39 West 14th St., #206  New York, NY  10011
(212) 633-6646  fax: (212) 633-2889 
http://www.iacenter.org  email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

CLINTON SENDING 90,000 GROUND TROOPS TO YUGOSLAVIA

Hague Indictment of Milosevic a Cover for the Real Story

Today's London Times reported that the U.S. is deep in the throes of
planning a full-scale ground war in Yugoslavia. Under the headline
"Clinton to Order 90,000 Troops to Kosovo," the Times reported,
"[T]here is a growing feeling in Washington and London that the
alliance must prepare itself for a much bigger operation, involving
150,000-160,000 troops."

"This is the real story behind the so-called `war crimes' indictments
against Yugoslav President Milosevic," said Sara Flounders of the
Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War. "The charges are to justify a
massive bombing campaign. The Hague indictment is the newest tactic to
justify a ground war. All of it is intended to break up Yugoslavia for
takeover by Wall Street.

"The war planners didn't count on the fierce determination of the
Yugoslav people to resist NATO occupation troops," Flounders said.
"After 65 days of bombing, with their plans frustrated, the architects
of this war are desperate. They are driven to take actions which can't
help but fuel the growing anti-war sentiment now leading to the June 5
National March on the Pentagon.

"NATO's massive, unrestricted bombardment of major cities, the
destruction of water and electricity for the whole population, the
bombing of chemical plants, the use of radioactive depleted uranium
weapons - all of these are war crimes, specifically prohibited by
International Law. The International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague
is a creation by the Western powers.  It is not part of the World
Court or in the UN Charter.  The NATO war makers act as investigator,
prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

"The real story is that, once again, the U.S. will be sending poor
people to kill and be killed for corporate profits. The only thing
that can stop them is a peoples' anti-war movement here and in all
NATO countries, in solidarity with the people of Yugoslavia, that
demands an immediate end to the bombing, and money for jobs, education
and healthcare - not war."

[PEN-L:7467] (Fwd) Apparent Movement on Diplomatic Front

[ts99u-2.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.225]]

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Date sent:  Fri, 28 May 1999 16:02:44 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:Apparent Movement on Diplomatic Front

Stratfor Commentary 990528 2054gmt 

Apparent Movement on Diplomatic Front

In surprising news out of Belgrade, Yugoslav President Slobodan 
Milosevic has reportedly accepted the basic principles of the G-8 
proposal for peace in Kosovo and has agreed to a resolution that 
will be brought by the UN Security Council. The statement from 
Milosevic’s office also noted that the international community had 
accepted the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. 
According to Serbia's Beta news agency, Russian envoy Viktor 
Chernomyrdin was "very satisfied" with his talks he had with 
Milosevic, and would return to Belgrade next week with Finnish 
President Martti Ahtisaari. Ahtisaari has previously refused to travel 
to Belgrade until NATO and Moscow – presumably as a proxy for 
Belgrade – had reached a common negotiating position.

We say this news is surprising in that Chernomyrdin’s visit was 
preceded by statements of lowest expectation from both the 
Russian and NATO sides. Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin 
said that the fate of Russia's diplomatic drive to end the Kosovo 
crisis hinged on Chernomyrdin's trip to Belgrade. "After 
Chernomyrdin's return (to Moscow) we shall definitely be able to 
answer the question whether further political dialogue is possible 
(on Kosovo) or whether Yugoslavia will be sucked into a ground 
war, which of course should not be allowed in principle," Stepashin 
told reporters. For his part, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe 
Talbott played down hopes of an early breakthrough to the Kosovo 
crisis, but said there had been progress in talks with Russia to seek 
an end to the conflict. Talbott said, "We have had some success and 
made some progress." However, he said, "The real issue here is not 
what can be agreed between the U.S. and Russia --it is what is 
Belgrade going to agree to. We are not negotiating with Belgrade 
through the Russians or through the Finnish president."

>From the tone prior to today’s Chernomyrdin-Milosevic meeting, it 
appeared at best that NATO and Russia expected nothing, and at 
worst, that Russia would abandon its efforts to negotiate a 
settlement. Now, assuming the reports are accurate, Ahtisaari is 
ready to go to Belgrade and a draft UN Security Council resolution 
on ending the crisis already exists. 

What offer could Chernomyrdin have delivered to Belgrade that 
reconciled the NATO and Yugoslav positions? It was apparently 
delivered grudgingly, judging by Stepashin’s comment that it was 
ready to wash its hands of the affair and Talbott’s comment that 
NATO cared only what Belgrade accepted, not what Moscow 
liked. The only hint emerging from the talks between Talbott, 
Ahtisaari, Chernomyrdin, and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov 
in Moscow was Ivanov’s comment to reporters on Wednesday 
ruling out any partitioning of Kosovo as a means of solving the 
Balkans crisis. Since he most likely did not pull that comment out 
of thin air, we can only assume that the U.S. floated the idea of 
partition in hopes of reaching a breakthrough in negotiations. 
Interestingly, on Thursday, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug 
announced that Milosevic was ready for a political solution to the 
Kosovo crisis "without delay." 

A partition of Kosovo, with both sectors under nominal Yugoslav 
sovereignty, is not a perfect solution, but might could possibly be 
tolerable to all sides – except the Kosovar Albanians, who have 
played a secondary role in this since NATO took up their cause 
anyway. The Kosovar Albanians could return, but not to all of 
Kosovo – probably only to a small corner. An international 
peacekeeping force could move into Kosovo with Russians, 
Ukrainians, etc. policing the Serbian sector and a NATO contingent 
policing the Kosovar Albanian sector. Yugoslav troops would 
withdraw, since the Russians wouldn’t raise much fuss when they 
returned shortly thereafter to the Serbian sector. Interminable 
negotiations would then ensue, absent the NATO bombings.

Of course, this speculative, and even if a partition is on the table, it 
defers more than it solves Kosovo’s problems. We must wait for 
both the details and the expected clarifications, retractions, and 
stipulations out of Belgrade – subsequently to be rejected by NATO 
– that have spoiled Chernomyrdin’s previous negotiating 
breakthroughs. Nevertheless, and whatever the ultimate outcome of 
today’s meeting, things appear to be moving again on the 
diplomatic front. 

[PEN-L:7468] Fun With Math

[Sam Pawlett]

I thought this was amusing given the recent flare ups about academacism.
This criticism( by one of the finest philosophers in the business) can be
extended to much of what goes on in academic economics.
from *Vaulting Ambition. Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature* by
Philip Kitcher. MIT. 1985.

" Genes, Mind and Culture is am extreme example of a certain type of work.
Complex mathematics is employed to cover up very simple--often simplistic--
ideas. In many instances besides ones on which I have focused, Lumsden (C)
and Wilson (E.O.) occupy themselves by applying symbolism of mind-numbing
obscurity to the solution of unimportant problems. For example, one appendix
investigates the possibility of a computer program for modeling the
initiation of young males among Warao: the initiation involves smoking
hallucinogens and reporting dream experiences. In another appendix the
authors, obsessed with the desire to demolish the notion that human beings
are tabulae rasae, compute the waiting time for departure from the state of
indifference.
   What is irritating, and occasionally amusing, about these uses of
mathematics is that they serve to disguise poverty of thought...
   "Lewontin has characterized _Genes, Mind and Culture_ as containing "no
genes, no mind and no culture". The charge sounds flippant ut we have found
it to be apt. There are no genes: for the examples studied in detail, the
examples of "gene" -culture translation, are independent of the genetic
bases of our preferences, and the authors have no other new information to
offer about the genetics of human behavior. There is no mind: for, as we
have seen, psychological insights about human decision making play no role
in the theory. There is no culture: for Lumsden and Wilson do not even *see*
the problem of identifying the social institutions in their preferred idiom,
much less solve it. So indeed there are no genes, no mind and no culture.
But there are lots of equations." p 393-4.

sam Pawlett

[PEN-L:7465] Re: Domitila Chungara

[Sam Pawlett]

She gave  a famous speech to the UN putting down NGO's, no?

Sam

[PEN-L:7464] Domitila Chungara

[Michael Perelman]

Dear Friends:

We are writing to request your help with a solidarity fund established
for
Domitila Barrios de Chungara, author of the significant Latin American
testimonial "Let Me Speak" (published by Monthly Review Press) and key
mining union leader in Bolivia. Domitila is facing surgery to remove a
large growth in her breast -- she does not yet know if it is malignant.

Domitila has played a crucial role in Bolivian politics and her story
has
inspired social activists throughout Latin America and the world. During

the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer she was exiled or banned several

times from the mining camp Siglo XX for her work as part of the Comité
de
Amas de Casa de Siglo XX (Housewives' Committee of the Mining Center
Siglo
XX). She was jailed and tortured, losing the baby she was carrying. In
1978, Domitila and three other members of the Housewives' Committee,
initiated a hunger strike which grew to massive proportions with the
incorporation of students, priests, and many other Bolivians. The strike

brought down the Banzer dictatorship.

In 1986, Domitila participated in the Marcha por la Vida ("The March for

Life") to protest the closing of the large tin mines, including Siglo
XX.
These closures resulted in the the firing of some 23,000 miners and
their
families from the state mines. Since then, Domitila has been living in
Cochabamba, where she directs an "Escuela Móvil." This itinerant school
visits rural villages and poor neighborhoods to provide education about
legal and human rights, unionization, and the history of the struggle of

Bolivian people.

Now this incredibly powerful woman needs surgery. The cost of the
operation
in Bolivia has been estimated at some $2,000 dollars. But if the tumor
is
malignant, the cost will radically increase to an estimated
$6,000-10,000
dollars. She has recently decided to have her surgery in Cuba. We still
don't know how much her medical expenses will be there, but she will
need
to cover her travel expenses.

Domitila's former husband remarried so she does not have any medical
insurance nor enough savings to cover the expenses. At the same time,
she
has a strong sense of dignity and doesn't want to beg for help. It was
only
after we told her how inspiring the reading of her book (Let Me Speak,
New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1978), had been to many of us, that she
agreed
to our making this call for solidarity.

Please send your check or money order to The Domitila Chungara Fund, 208

Utica St., Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. Linda Farthing and Ben Kohl have
agreed
to manage this account and get the funds to Domitila. We will send you
an
acknowledgement of your gift and an update on Domitila's health. Thank
you
for your solidarity with a woman who has inspired us all by her struggle

for greater social and economic justice.

Tom Kruse
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Tom Kruse
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:7462] Re: Suriname

[Michael Hoover]

> anyone know anything about suriname?  - Angela
> ---
> Suriname Leader Faces Continuing Street Protests
> 12:15 a.m. May 28, 1999
> PARAMARIBO, Suriname (Reuters) - Thousands of anti- government protesters
> marched through the Surinamese capital Thursday as embattled President Jules
> Wijdenbosch faced mounting calls for his resignation amid a deepening
> economic crisis.
> The crowd of about 20,000 people banged pots, pans and empty oil cans and
> shouted slogans calling for Bosje, as Wijdenbosch is called, to step down.
> The former
> Dutch colony on the northern shoulder of South America has been rocked for a
> week by anti-government protests over steep price rises and a plunging local
> currency.  
> Suriname, a
> multiethnic country of 400,000, has seen its economy hit by poor prices for
> key exports like bauxite, shrimps, bananas and gold.   While Wijdenbosch
> blames these external factors and heavy foreign currency demand by drug
> traffickers for the current crisis, local economists argue the economy has
> been mismanaged.

Suriname gained political independence from Dutch in 1975...first
post-independence gov't, rife with corruption, was overthrown
by military coup in 1980...post-coup gov't, led by Desi Bouterse,
moved in left direction by developing relations with Cuba,
Nicaragua, and Grenada (with whom it shared some similarities
during Maurice Bishop period) and establishing neighborhood and
community organizations similar to those existing in each of those 
countries...

Dutch cut off economic subsidies (which it had agreed to provide for 
ten years) in 1982 when Suriname gov't arrested and executed 16 
political opponents...military leaders initiated process of 
transition to civilian gov't in 1987 and elections were held in 1991...

present Suriname gov't agreed to typical IMF 'structural adjustment' 
program in 1996...government has been under pressure to sell between 
25%-40% of the country's territory to an Asian (Malaysia. Indonesia, 
Chinese) timber consortium in effort to make up for declining 
revenues from bauxite industry...consortium has offered US $500 
million which is approximately equal to Suriname's GDP...region
under consideration is pristine rain forest with tremendous
animal and plant diversity that is inhabited by indigenous people 
living in what are called 'forest communities'...  Michael Hoover

[PEN-L:7463] Michael Moore on Colorado & Kosovo

[Michael Eisenscher]

http://www.zmag.org/colokos.htm
>
> Back to ZNet Kosovo/Nato
> Contents 
> Back to ZNet Top Page
>
>  
>
> A Letter From Michael Moore...
>
> April 22, 1999
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> There he was, The Great Consoler, standing at the podium, biting his lip, and
> speaking to a nation in shock.
>
> "We must teach our children to settle their differences through words and not
> weapons." Meanwhile, this same President, continues a daily slaughter of
> human beings. He says it's because the people he is bombing are doing their
> own slaughter. He has chosen to respond to their actions not with "words" but
> with death.
>
> Is it any wonder some of our children -- especially those in most pain, the
> "outcasts," the "uncool" -- decide to turn to murder and strike out against
> what they perceive to be a world against them? We live in a culture in
> America where violence is The Way We Get Things Done. If it works for their
> elders, why shouldn't the kids give it a try? As the kids at the high school
> near Denver huddled in locked classrooms in the hopes that they would not be
> the next one with a bullet in the face, they turned on the  classroom TVs to
> watch the carnage and their own potential execution on CNN. One student,
> "Bob," got on his cell phone and called the local Channel 9 to give the
> on-air anchors a live play-by-play of events inside the school. 
>
> "Bob," the anchors said after getting their precious, Emmy-winning sound
> bytes, "maybe you should hang up now and call 911." "Uh, oh, yeah," responded
> Bob, sounding a bit disappointed. His connection to the virtual world of
> television and cellular communication was more a part of his instinct to
> survive than his need to call the cops. Or maybe he trusted the people on TV
> more to get him out of there than the full-time armed officer who patrolled
> the halls of the high school. Not one gun of a well-armed force of police
> that showed up was able to prevent one death.
>
> A world away, kids just a few years older than Bob are dropping bombs that
> are killing kids just a few years younger than Bob. We know this because we
> watch it on TV. We learn why we're dropping these bombs also on TV. A man
> from the Pentagon shows us cool video game images of point-and-click targets
> that go "BOOM!" Cool.
>
> Another man in an important uniform shows us photographs from one of the
> Mother-of-All-Cameras, those satellites that sit thousands of miles up in
> space and have, I guess, REALLY long lenses.
>
> He shows us Photo #1. Here, he says, is "unbroken, untouched ground" from a
> week ago. Then he shows us Photo #2 where he points to the ground being
> "freshly turned-over, dug up, and replaced." This, he says, is evidence of "a
> mass grave."
>
> The reporters sit there like anxious pet dogs, lapping up the "revelations"
> and eagerly reporting them to us as "truth." But these journalists failed to
> ask the man in the important uniform one very important and obvious question:
> "Where's the middle photo?" If our satellite camera is always up there and
> running, capturing the before and after of a 300 foot piece of dirt, where's
> the "during" photo? The satellite cameras were snapping pictures the whole
> time, so where's the photos of the massacre itself? Where are the photos of
> the Serbs transporting the bodies to the "mass grave?" Where are the photos
> of the bodies being placed in the "mass grave" and covered with dirt? Where's
> just ONE photo of any of this?
>
> Was the satellite camera on the blink during all this activity? Was it only
> working before the ground was dug and then only after it was covered back up?
> Where are those photos, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair? Members of our so-called
> free press: Where is your courage to ask the obvious questions? Why won't
> you? Why are we being lied to? On the night of the Denver shootings, NATO
> (us) bombed the building containing the three Serbian TV entertainment
> networks. They didn't bomb the news station putting out the nightly
> propaganda until two nights later. They chose to bomb the entertainment
> networks first, one of which was showing "Wag the Dog" with its fake Albanian
> atrocity scenes, on a continuous loop. Yes! Bomb the entertainment networks,
> 'cause it's all just one big show for a violence-deprived public forced to
> sit through a year of mostly-unconsummated oral sex in oval offices. We'd
> much prefer the gore to Gore and Bill. "The Matrix," a film about a young
> hero in a trenchcoat who is able to blows away everything in sight, is the
> number one film this week in the country. 
>
> And as the children of Denver ran from the trenchcoated killers, they were
> not met outside by nurturing adults who might take them into their arms to
> console and soothe them. No, the students were ordered to run out with their
> hands above their heads into the gun sights of the local

[PEN-L:7458] (Fwd) RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED - The Washington Post

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Fri, 28 May 1999 12:13:38 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED - The Washington Post

The Washington Post   Friday, May 28, 1999; Page A28 

RUSSIA SAYS TALKS SIDESWIPED

Milosevic Indictment Deepens Pessimism Over Peace Efforts

By David Hoffman

Moscow, May 27 — Russia vowed today to continue to try to mediate 
between NATO and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic but said 
that his indictment on war crimes charges had complicated the effort 
and that the talks were not moving in a positive direction.
Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian special envoy for the Yugoslav 
crisis, denounced the indictment of Milosevic as a "political show" and 
postponed his planned trip to Belgrade by a day, until Friday.
He did so after a round of talks here with Deputy Secretary of State 
Strobe Talbott and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the European 
Union envoy -- the latest effort in prolonged negotiations that have yet 
to produce a postwar plan for Kosovo. Talbott and Ahtisaari 
immediately left for Bonn. Aides said Chernomyrdin still planned to fly 
to Belgrade on Friday, and Ahtisaari said later he may join him.
While concrete information was scarce, Russian and Western 
sources emphasized that the talks face difficulties. Russian officials 
said the three negotiators would meet in a few days to try again.
Today's talks, which included military experts, were the outgrowth 
of several weeks of slow-going diplomacy aimed at finding a political 
settlement to end the NATO air raids against Yugoslavia and the 
exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, a province of Serbia, 
Yugoslavia's dominant republic. A key focus has been on how to create 
a Kosovo peacekeeping force that would allow refugees to return. 
NATO insists it must be at the core of such a force, but Russia wants 
United Nations leadership.
There were signs that the West's discussions with Chernomyrdin 
were difficult, even before his next step of flying to see Milosevic. 
Chernomyrdin has insisted that he does not want to be just a mailman 
between NATO and Belgrade. But the West has shown no signs of 
compromise, putting him in a ticklish position at home.
"I have a nasty feeling about the talks," said a Russian source with 
close ties to the foreign policy establishment. "NATO is making it clear 
that [a settlement] has to be on their terms, and if we want to, we can 
join. Chernomyrdin is a bit heavy to go into retirement as a former 
mailman."
In Washington today, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou 
also expressed concern that the mediation was hampered by the gap 
between Moscow and NATO on key issues such as composition of the 
peacekeeping force.
"We have basically given the whole negotiation . . . to the 
Russians," Papandreou told Washington Post editors and reporters. 
"They're saying, 'We can only negotiate up to a point, we can't push 
NATO priorities because they aren't our priorities.' "
There were signs that Yugoslavia was looking for mediators other 
than Moscow to convey its message to the United States. In 
Washington, Jesse L. Jackson said Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin 
Jovanovic told him today that Yugoslavia was willing to reduce its 
forces in Kosovo "substantially and quickly" to 12,000 if NATO first 
suspended its bombing. NATO has signaled it will halt its airstrikes 
only after Belgrade has withdrawn significant forces from Kosovo.
NATO estimates that Yugoslavia has about 40,000 troops, police 
and other forces in the province. It has demanded that all of them leave, 
while signaling some could return for purposes such as to help protect 
borders and holy sites.
Jackson said he had remained in touch with senior Yugoslav 
officials since playing a key role in winning the release of three 
American POWs on May 2. Jackson, who said he briefed the White 
House on his talk with Jovanovic, said "12,000 is too many, but it's still 
substantial movement. There is some flexibility here."
In Moscow, Western sources said Chernomyrdin, accompanied by 
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov at today's discussions, faces several 
obstacles. The first is that his personal relationship with Milosevic is 
not good; their prior meetings have been tense. Second, Russia's 
foreign policy and defense establishment is firmly against NATO's 
offensive and Chernomyrdin has few allies at home and many critics -- 
especially if he just appears to be doing the West's bidding. Still other 
roadblocks are today's indictment of Milosevic and NATO's continuing 
airstrikes, despite Russia's daily pleas for a pause.
"We cannot say the situation is developing positively," President 
Boris Yeltsin's spokesman, Dmitri Yakushkin, told r

[PEN-L:7457] (Fwd) CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY - Windsor Star

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Fri, 28 May 1999 11:15:59 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY - Windsor Star

The Windsor StarMay 10, 1999

CHIPS MAY DIP INTO WORKPLACE SANITY

By Stephan Bevan, The London Times

Big Brother could soon be watching from the inside. Several British 
companies are consulting scientists on ways of developing microchip 
implants for their workers to measure their timekeeping and whereabouts.
The technology, which has been proven on pets and human 
volunteers, would enable firms to track staff. The data could enable them 
to draw up estimates of workers' efficiency and productivity.
The firms, understood to include British banks and technology 
companies, have approached Prof. Kevin Warwick of Reading University, 
a leading cybernetics expert. He has also been in consultations with 
Blackbaud Inc, the American software giant.
Warwick hit the headlines last summer when he had a silicon chip 
transponder surgically implanted in his forearm.
He was subsequently able to show how a computer could monitor 
every move he made using detectors scattered around the building in 
which he worked.
In his experiment, Warwick showed how the system could also benefit 
workers by programming it to switch on lights, computers and heating 
systems as he entered a room -- and turning them off when he left.
The technology is likely to have a strong appeal to companies with 
high labour costs, for which small increases in staff productivity can have 
a big impact on profits. It is also relatively cheap -- just a few dollars
for 
each person, according to Warwick.
"For a business, the potential is obvious," he said. "You can tell when 
people clock into work and when they leave the building. You would know 
at all times exactly where they were and who they were with."
Warwick admits people will be "shocked' by the idea of companies 
asking their employees to have such implants. He said: "It is pushing at 
the limits of what society will accept, but in a way it is not such a big 
deal. Many employees already carry swipecards."
His research follows earlier experiments by companies, such as 
telecommunications firm AT&T, that showed how smart cards carried by 
staff could be programmed to relay a worker's position back to a central 
computer. AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge have been working on 
"smart badges" for two years. They use ultrasound to tell the main 
computer exactly where the wearer is, allowing their desktop computers 
and phone calls to "follow" them around the building.
The company has, however, stopped short of suggesting staff should 
have devices inserted into their bodies.
The first practical application of such technology is, however, not in 
humans but in pets. Under the government's new "passports for pets" 
scheme, which replaces the quarantine system from 2001, dogs will have a 
microchip implanted beneath their skin to identify who they belong to.
Representatives from police forces in the United Kingdom and the 
United States have also expressed interest in the implant technology, 
according to Warwick.
He believes that submitting to an implant could be made a condition, 
for example, of being granted a gun licence.

[PEN-L:7455] (Fwd) WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Norman Solomon

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Thu, 27 May 1999 16:33:11 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Norman Solomon   

WHAT'S DEMOCRACY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

By Norman Solomon   /   Creators Syndicate

A few days ago, the president of the United States openly 
violated the War Powers Act -- and the national media yawned.
The war powers law, enacted in 1973, requires congressional 
approval if the U.S. military is to engage in hostilities for more than 
60 days. As that deadline passed on May 25, some members of the 
House spoke up. "Today, the president is in violation of the law," 
California Republican Tom Campbell pointed out. "That is clear." 
And Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich added: "The war continues 
unauthorized, without the consent of the governed."
But sophisticated journalists in the nation's capital just 
shrugged. To them -- and to the Clinton administration -- the law is 
irrelevant and immaterial, a dead letter undeserving of serious 
attention. In this dark time of push-button warfare, when more and 
more eyes are getting adjusted to shadowy maneuvers, it's possible 
to discern a pattern of contempt for basic democratic principles.
Forget all that high-sounding stuff in the civics textbooks. 
Unable to get Congress to vote for the ongoing air war, the 
president insists on continuing to bomb Yugoslav cities and towns, 
destroying bridges and hospitals, electrical generators and water 
systems. Boasting of the Pentagon's might, he pursues a Pax 
Technocratica with remote-control assurance.
Attorney Walter J. Rockler, a former prosecutor at the 
Nuremberg War Crimes Trials more than half a century ago, is 
among the Americans outraged at what is now being done in their 
names. On May 23, his essay in the Chicago Tribune denounced 
"our murderously destructive bombing campaign in Yugoslavia."
"The notion that humanitarian violations can be redressed with 
random destruction and killing by advanced technological means is 
inherently suspect," he wrote. "This is mere pretext for our arrogant 
assertion of dominance and power in defiance of international law. 
We make the non-negotiable demands and rules, and implement 
them by military force."
With enormous help from mass media, the White House has 
been able to marginalize the public on matters of war and peace. 
Reporters and pundits routinely portray top U.S. officials as 
beleaguered experts whose jobs are difficult enough without 
intrusive pressures from commoners. More than ever, the American 
people are serving as spectators while elites make crucial foreign-
policy decisions.
When military action is on the agenda in Washington, public 
opinion can be troublesome, even obstructionist. That's one of the 
hazards of democracy -- or at least it should be. But the Clinton 
team has learned to mitigate the danger that the public will intrude 
on the process of deciding whether the United States should go to 
war. It's a trend that has been accelerating in recent years.
In February 1998, key U.S. officials traveled to Ohio State 
University for a "town hall meeting" about a prospective American 
missile attack on Iraq. Airing live on CNN, the session went badly 
from the vantage point of Madeleine Albright, William Cohen and 
Samuel Berger, whose responses to tough questions seemed 
inadequate to many viewers. The trio left Columbus with egg on 
their faces.
Evidently, the debacle made a big impression. Since then, leery 
of any high-profile forum that could get out of control, the White 
House has not even gone through the motions of consulting the 
public before launching a military attack -- on Sudan and 
Afghanistan last August, on Iraq last December, and on Yugoslavia 
this spring. With warfare on the horizon, President Clinton's 
attitude toward the American public seems to be: When I want your 
opinion, I'll ask for it.
This approach has met with little challenge from news media. In 
fact, many journalists in Washington seem to share the view that the 
public is inclined to be too meddlesome -- and should not be 
allowed to tie the hands of foreign-policy specialists who may 
wisely wish to pursue the goals of U.S. diplomacy by military 
means.
While the decision to go to war is momentous, the public has 
found itself in the role of passive onlooker. Rather than submit to a 
process of national debate, the White House prefers to present 
Americans with a fait accompli. One of the effects of the missile 
attack launched against Yugoslavia on March 24 was to truncate 
the public debate before it had even begun.
When U.S. military action is involved, Clinton's policy-makers 
seem to regard the public as a sort of unruly -- and perhaps rather 
dumb -- animal that must be tamed a

[PEN-L:7442] Suriname

[rc-am]

anyone know anything about suriname?  - Angela
---
Suriname Leader Faces Continuing Street Protests
12:15 a.m. May 28, 1999

PARAMARIBO, Suriname (Reuters) - Thousands of anti- government protesters
marched through the Surinamese capital Thursday as embattled President Jules
Wijdenbosch faced mounting calls for his resignation amid a deepening
economic crisis.

The crowd of about 20,000 people banged pots, pans and empty oil cans and
shouted slogans calling for Bosje, as Wijdenbosch is called, to step down.
Police, who fired warning shots and tear gas during similar protests over the
past week, did not intervene and no incidents were reported.  The former
Dutch colony on the northern shoulder of South America has been rocked for a
week by anti-government protests over steep price rises and a plunging local
currency.  The protests have brought the sparsely populated country virtually
to a standstill with most shops, gasoline stations and schools closed and
many civil servants on strike.  Wijdenbosch, who took office in September
1996 for five years, has resisted calls for his resignation and political and
diplomatic sources said he might declare a state of emergency.  ``If the
president wants to declare the state of emergency ... he has to explain why
it is necessary,'' former president Ronald Venetiaan said during Thursday's
march.   A state of emergency would allow the president to rule by decree
with a suspension of most civil liberties.  Foreign Minister Errol Snijders
hinted at the prospect when, according to diplomatic sources, he told members
of the diplomatic corps Wednesday that the government would take ``any
constitutional measures necessary to maintain public order.'' Suriname, a
multiethnic country of 400,000, has seen its economy hit by poor prices for
key exports like bauxite, shrimps, bananas and gold.   While Wijdenbosch
blames these external factors and heavy foreign currency demand by drug
traffickers for the current crisis, local economists argue the economy has
been mismanaged.