BASICS Bulletin - 4 May 2009
BASICS Free Community Newsletter condemns the disgraceful conduct of
the Toronto Police Service in its treatment of of the Tamil community
and peaceful demonstrators attempting to join the Tamil rally at the
US consulate on May 2, 2009.
For the last two months the Tamil community has shown exemplary unity
and organization in demanding an end to the genocide of the Tamil
people being carried out by the Sri Lankan government, including the
use of military attacks on civilian targets and the use of chemical
weapons and concentration camps in an attempt to break their movement
for national liberation. The Tamil community has persevered despite
the silence of the Canadian government and corporate media and
undemocratic repression by the Toronto police. In the words of one
demonstrator, "We will not be treated like animals!"
On May 2, thousands of people, both Canadian-born and migrant workers,
marched to call for an end to the racist attacks of the Canadian
government against immigrant communities. After the No One Is Illegal
march ended at City Hall, a large group of marchers continued on to
join the rally organized by the Tamil community at the US consulate.
The police showed no respect for the peoples right to peaceful
assembly and freedom of speech as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. Even though there was no violence or even threat of
violence from the side of the demonstrators, police verbally and
physically assaulted the people, calling them "terrorists" and other
insults. The marchers were penned in between metal barricades and
rows of armed riot police, creating a tight bottleneck on one end of
the sidewalk while mounted police on horses assaulted marchers from
the other end. Tamils and non-Tamils alike were brutalized and
crushed together, including women and children. Police even assaulted
a young couple who were only passers-by and were complying with police
instructions to leave the area. The officer grabbed the woman with
both hands and threw her down on the pavement and threatened to arrest
her partner when he attempted to passively intervene.
Two marchers, including a correspondent for BASICS Free Community
Newsletter and a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid,
were arrested for "disturbing the peace," even though their only crime
was speaking out in defense of the Tamil people and calling for
international solidarity. Footage now posted on YouTube clearly shows
that the CAIA member was arrested simply because he dared to make the
links between the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka to the occupation
and apartheid policies imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel and
correctly identifying the Canadian state as being complicit in both of
these international war crimes. Footage also clearly shows that there
was no basis for the arrest and mistreatment of the correspondent from
BASICS at the hands of the Toronto police.
The police have been attempting to break the growing unity between
Tamils and non-Tamils, by spreading rumours to each side that the
others are "trouble-makers." Anyone who views the footage of police
conduct at the demonstration will know the truth: that it is the
police who are the real "trouble-makers!"
As our arrested comrade from BASICS said, "The excessive response
against me – both at the time of my arrest and during the booking
procedure at the police station, was intended to humiliate and
intimidate me and thereby discourage my participation in the Tamil
protests. Needless to say, I will be back at the Tamil protest making
“trouble” as long as the Tamil community will be there."
We will not be intimidated! Our unity will not be broken! BASICS
Free Community Newsletter demands an impartial investigation into the
treatment of demonstrators by the Toronto police, disciplining of any
officers who violated peoples rights, as well as a public apology from
Chief of Police Bill Blair for the disgraceful and cowardly conduct of
his officers. Further, we demand that the Canadian government use any
and all means available to pressure the Sri Lankan government to stop
the genocide of the Tamil people! For more information, contact
basics.canada@gmail.com or visit our website at
basicsnewsletter.blogspot.com.
Showing posts with label uprising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uprising. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
FMLN Triumphs in Elections in El Salvador, But the Struggle Continues
by Nicolas Lopez of Barrio Nuevo Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
Patiently enduring a long road of suffering and disillusionment, the FMLN, the main people’s party of El Salvador, has set an example of how perseverance and conviction can achieve what it aims for. On March 15, 2009 the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) triumphed in El Salvador’s presidential elections, bringing a major political defeat to the right-wing governing party, ARENA, and bringing the people one step closer to the reality of social and economic justice.
During the 1980s, five insurgent groups united to form the FMLN coalition, which they named after the internationalist-minded Farabundo Marti, a Salvadorian leader of a peasant and working class uprising against electoral fraud in January 1932. Dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez reacted with furious violence against the movement, backed by U.S. and British military support. During an event known as ‘La Matanza’ (The Massacre), Farabundo Marti was executed and historians estimate that some 30,000 people were killed during four days. Since then, the people’s movement in El Salvador took to the underground to organize themselves clandestinely to overcome repression. In response, the Salvadorian government began using death squads to kill the revolutionaries’ social base. During those years of fierce repression, the people’s movement was forced to take up armed struggle as a way to defend the poor from the violence imposed on them, enduring the hardships of a gruesome civil war that lasted from 1979 until 1992. Although the people’s movement was unable to seize power from the powerful Salvadorian army aided by a million-dollar-a-day U.S. investment in paramilitary squads, the movement was still able to achieve wide political support and legitimacy, laying the foundation of what today is a victorious movement.
This is the brutal history that set the tone for the 2009 Presidential elections in El Salvador.
A week before the elections, the FMLN closed the campaign in the capital, San Salvador. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in a public gathering, the largest crowd for a political event in decades. It was a show of support far superior to what the right wing party displayed the next day. It was obvious by then that the FMLN had a greater following than the opposing party, and during the days of that week ARENA (Republican Nationalist Alliance) desperately tried to convince people through an intensive media bombardment that if FMLN were to be elected, El Salvador would become subordinate to Venezuela and “President Hugo Chavez’s expansionist project”, and that Salvadorians would risk having remittances from family members in the U.S. halted by the U.S. government.
ARENA’s maneuvers to discredit the revolutionaries included personal attacks against FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes, to which Funes responded by highlighting his party’s proposals to overcome the devastating effects of the neoliberal capitalist policies implemented by ARENA since 1993. ARENA has a long track record of using tricks and foul play to maintain power, but this time the frustrated population would not allow another fraud to occur and perhaps wouldn’t limit their furious reaction.
ARENA has in past handed out thousands of fake IDs to people they brought in from neighboring countries to fraudulently vote for their party. Although widespread evidence indicates this also happened on March 15th, 2009 FMLN was still able to move their voters and supporters to the vote and defend their electoral rights against these ‘tactricks’ of ARENA.
However, change will only occur gradually in El Salvador, with the right still firmly entrenched in the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and with the FMLN lacking a majority of seats in the Parliament. At best, the FMLN’s presence in the government will only be able to pave the ground for future rounds of struggle. For a start, it will begin by opening the books and taxing big business and recover the U$2 billion lost every year on tax evasion. This could allow them to increase wages and subsidies to basic social services, implement land reform and increase agricultural production, increase employment and scholarship opportunities and reduce gang violence in urban areas. Also, the FMLN’s political presence will give them the opportunity to strengthen the social and political capacity of the mass movements, for example by strengthening community media. Furthermore, with the FMLN at the head of the executive branch of government, they will be able to establish independent foreign relations, which under ARENA’s governments were so submissive to U.S. policy.
All of this, however, will only be possible through the continued participation and increased development of an organized mass movement to defend and advance the struggle for the economic and social power of the people.
Patiently enduring a long road of suffering and disillusionment, the FMLN, the main people’s party of El Salvador, has set an example of how perseverance and conviction can achieve what it aims for. On March 15, 2009 the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) triumphed in El Salvador’s presidential elections, bringing a major political defeat to the right-wing governing party, ARENA, and bringing the people one step closer to the reality of social and economic justice.
During the 1980s, five insurgent groups united to form the FMLN coalition, which they named after the internationalist-minded Farabundo Marti, a Salvadorian leader of a peasant and working class uprising against electoral fraud in January 1932. Dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez reacted with furious violence against the movement, backed by U.S. and British military support. During an event known as ‘La Matanza’ (The Massacre), Farabundo Marti was executed and historians estimate that some 30,000 people were killed during four days. Since then, the people’s movement in El Salvador took to the underground to organize themselves clandestinely to overcome repression. In response, the Salvadorian government began using death squads to kill the revolutionaries’ social base. During those years of fierce repression, the people’s movement was forced to take up armed struggle as a way to defend the poor from the violence imposed on them, enduring the hardships of a gruesome civil war that lasted from 1979 until 1992. Although the people’s movement was unable to seize power from the powerful Salvadorian army aided by a million-dollar-a-day U.S. investment in paramilitary squads, the movement was still able to achieve wide political support and legitimacy, laying the foundation of what today is a victorious movement.
This is the brutal history that set the tone for the 2009 Presidential elections in El Salvador.A week before the elections, the FMLN closed the campaign in the capital, San Salvador. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in a public gathering, the largest crowd for a political event in decades. It was a show of support far superior to what the right wing party displayed the next day. It was obvious by then that the FMLN had a greater following than the opposing party, and during the days of that week ARENA (Republican Nationalist Alliance) desperately tried to convince people through an intensive media bombardment that if FMLN were to be elected, El Salvador would become subordinate to Venezuela and “President Hugo Chavez’s expansionist project”, and that Salvadorians would risk having remittances from family members in the U.S. halted by the U.S. government.
ARENA’s maneuvers to discredit the revolutionaries included personal attacks against FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes, to which Funes responded by highlighting his party’s proposals to overcome the devastating effects of the neoliberal capitalist policies implemented by ARENA since 1993. ARENA has a long track record of using tricks and foul play to maintain power, but this time the frustrated population would not allow another fraud to occur and perhaps wouldn’t limit their furious reaction.
ARENA has in past handed out thousands of fake IDs to people they brought in from neighboring countries to fraudulently vote for their party. Although widespread evidence indicates this also happened on March 15th, 2009 FMLN was still able to move their voters and supporters to the vote and defend their electoral rights against these ‘tactricks’ of ARENA.
However, change will only occur gradually in El Salvador, with the right still firmly entrenched in the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and with the FMLN lacking a majority of seats in the Parliament. At best, the FMLN’s presence in the government will only be able to pave the ground for future rounds of struggle. For a start, it will begin by opening the books and taxing big business and recover the U$2 billion lost every year on tax evasion. This could allow them to increase wages and subsidies to basic social services, implement land reform and increase agricultural production, increase employment and scholarship opportunities and reduce gang violence in urban areas. Also, the FMLN’s political presence will give them the opportunity to strengthen the social and political capacity of the mass movements, for example by strengthening community media. Furthermore, with the FMLN at the head of the executive branch of government, they will be able to establish independent foreign relations, which under ARENA’s governments were so submissive to U.S. policy.
All of this, however, will only be possible through the continued participation and increased development of an organized mass movement to defend and advance the struggle for the economic and social power of the people.
Revolutionary Movement Advancing in Nepal
Himalayan Maoist-Communist Movement First to Make Major Breakthroughs in 21st Century
by Derek Rosin
Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
Revolution is very much alive, and nowhere is it stronger than in the Himalayan country of Nepal. Today in Nepal, a country of 30 million people, there is a real communist revolution taking place, something most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes. It's uplifting, exciting, dangerous, complicated and contradictory. And it needs to be studied carefully by anyone who's ever thought about what it would take to make a real revolution.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most people are poor peasants who can
barely eke out a living. It's a country dominated by foreign powers, especially its southern neighbour. India has historically strangled Nepalese domestic industry and controlled its resources. Internally, the Nepalese people are kept down by caste oppression – a system of discrimination based on the family you were born into. Women also suffer tremendously. The combination of poverty and oppression has forced tens of thousands of Nepalese women into prostitution in India. Communists have been active in Nepal for decades, searching for ways to solve these basic problems.
A turning point came in 1996, when an insurrection was launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Starting off small, the Maoist movement was able to strengthen and grow by relying on and leading mostly poor Nepalese peasants to fight and overthrow the forces of government in the countryside, then represented by an absolute monarchy. In their place, they began constructing a new society – by taking steps to end gender and caste oppression, introducing forms of popular democratic government, and providing for people's needs like basic health care and education. The Maoists called this the “People's War” - a revolutionary war of the people that seeks to overthrow the old system.
Within 10 years, the Maoists controlled 80% of Nepal. Only the cities remained firmly under government control. It was at this point that the Maoists decided to change tactics. Although they had built up a powerful People's Liberation Army (PLA), they did not feel it would be best to capture the cities militarily. They faced several obstacles: weak support among middle-class people in the cities, who would have to be important allies in any future society; an unfavourable international situation with no real socialist countries who could assist their extremely undeveloped country; and the mood of the masses themselves, who were justifiably exhausted by a decade of bloody conflict and yearned for peace.
In November 2006, the Maoists ended one phase of the revolution by signing a peace treaty with the government on the condition that elections be held for a Constituent Assembly – a temporary governing body that serves to write a new constitution for how society will work. The peace treaty gave the Maoists the freedom to begin doing intensive political work in areas they had previously been weak – namely in the cities and the heavily populated Southern Terai region. A tactic during this time was to politically isolate the leadership of the mainstream parties and reach out to their supporters by demanding the unconditional dissolution of the corrupt and widely-hated monarchy.
In April 2008, elections for the Constituent Assembly were held and the Maoists emerged as the biggest and most influential party. This shocked everyone in the world except the Maoists themselves, who knew the huge support they had been building throughout Nepal. In May, the monarchy was abolished.
Today, the situation is extremely complex. Although the Maoist leader Prachanda has been elected Prime Minister of the country, the revolution is far from complete. In nearly every way, it is just beginning.
Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has been clear for a long time that the process of negotiations and entering government is a temporary tactic, and that this phase will not last forever. He has also been clear to emphasize that all their gains have rested on the foundation of the People's War. For this reason, the Maoists, despite entering the government, have refused to disband or disarm their army. They want to fuse their army with the old National Army, maintaining their leaders and influence over it.
Maoists have also emphasized the need for a thorough agrarian revolution that would give peasants land and break the power of landlords. They want to push forward with what they are calling the “People's Federal Democratic National Republic”. This is a slogan that encompasses many demands: autonomy for minority nationalities, multi-party democracy and democratic rights, national sovereignty and independence, women's equality, the end of caste discrimination and more.
The old mainstream parties, who enriched themselves by defending the old society, are bitterly opposed to these plans, and will try to block the Maoists.
So now there exists an uneasy dance between the Maoists and the representatives of the old system, as each tries to manoeuvre for their very different goals. It's an unsustainable situation, one where something definitely has to give.
This is what a real revolution looks like. Messy, complex, full of new approaches, unorthodoxies, and compromise. Study intently and stay tuned.
by Derek Rosin
Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
Revolution is very much alive, and nowhere is it stronger than in the Himalayan country of Nepal. Today in Nepal, a country of 30 million people, there is a real communist revolution taking place, something most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes. It's uplifting, exciting, dangerous, complicated and contradictory. And it needs to be studied carefully by anyone who's ever thought about what it would take to make a real revolution.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Most people are poor peasants who can
barely eke out a living. It's a country dominated by foreign powers, especially its southern neighbour. India has historically strangled Nepalese domestic industry and controlled its resources. Internally, the Nepalese people are kept down by caste oppression – a system of discrimination based on the family you were born into. Women also suffer tremendously. The combination of poverty and oppression has forced tens of thousands of Nepalese women into prostitution in India. Communists have been active in Nepal for decades, searching for ways to solve these basic problems.A turning point came in 1996, when an insurrection was launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Starting off small, the Maoist movement was able to strengthen and grow by relying on and leading mostly poor Nepalese peasants to fight and overthrow the forces of government in the countryside, then represented by an absolute monarchy. In their place, they began constructing a new society – by taking steps to end gender and caste oppression, introducing forms of popular democratic government, and providing for people's needs like basic health care and education. The Maoists called this the “People's War” - a revolutionary war of the people that seeks to overthrow the old system.
Within 10 years, the Maoists controlled 80% of Nepal. Only the cities remained firmly under government control. It was at this point that the Maoists decided to change tactics. Although they had built up a powerful People's Liberation Army (PLA), they did not feel it would be best to capture the cities militarily. They faced several obstacles: weak support among middle-class people in the cities, who would have to be important allies in any future society; an unfavourable international situation with no real socialist countries who could assist their extremely undeveloped country; and the mood of the masses themselves, who were justifiably exhausted by a decade of bloody conflict and yearned for peace.
In November 2006, the Maoists ended one phase of the revolution by signing a peace treaty with the government on the condition that elections be held for a Constituent Assembly – a temporary governing body that serves to write a new constitution for how society will work. The peace treaty gave the Maoists the freedom to begin doing intensive political work in areas they had previously been weak – namely in the cities and the heavily populated Southern Terai region. A tactic during this time was to politically isolate the leadership of the mainstream parties and reach out to their supporters by demanding the unconditional dissolution of the corrupt and widely-hated monarchy.
In April 2008, elections for the Constituent Assembly were held and the Maoists emerged as the biggest and most influential party. This shocked everyone in the world except the Maoists themselves, who knew the huge support they had been building throughout Nepal. In May, the monarchy was abolished.
Today, the situation is extremely complex. Although the Maoist leader Prachanda has been elected Prime Minister of the country, the revolution is far from complete. In nearly every way, it is just beginning.
Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, has been clear for a long time that the process of negotiations and entering government is a temporary tactic, and that this phase will not last forever. He has also been clear to emphasize that all their gains have rested on the foundation of the People's War. For this reason, the Maoists, despite entering the government, have refused to disband or disarm their army. They want to fuse their army with the old National Army, maintaining their leaders and influence over it.
Maoists have also emphasized the need for a thorough agrarian revolution that would give peasants land and break the power of landlords. They want to push forward with what they are calling the “People's Federal Democratic National Republic”. This is a slogan that encompasses many demands: autonomy for minority nationalities, multi-party democracy and democratic rights, national sovereignty and independence, women's equality, the end of caste discrimination and more.
The old mainstream parties, who enriched themselves by defending the old society, are bitterly opposed to these plans, and will try to block the Maoists.
So now there exists an uneasy dance between the Maoists and the representatives of the old system, as each tries to manoeuvre for their very different goals. It's an unsustainable situation, one where something definitely has to give.
This is what a real revolution looks like. Messy, complex, full of new approaches, unorthodoxies, and compromise. Study intently and stay tuned.
Worker Victories in Guadeloupe and Martinique Resonate through French Empire
by Justin PanosBasics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
A leader of the League Against Profiteering (LKP) in Guadeloupe.
On January 19th, 2009, Guadeloupe’s League against Profiteering (LKP) organized workers, youth, and the women’s movement to shut down the small French Caribbean island’s industries, refusing to budge unless the French government dealt with the longstanding economic and cultural issues of the small nation. France’s domination over its colony, Guadeloupe, became intolerable for the island’s 450,000 residents earlier this year when masses of people closed down roadways, schools, gas stations, public transportation and the entire tourist infrastructure that services the rich elite from France and other richer nations.
Guadeloupe’s economy is regulated in euros as imposed by the French government. In 2007, the escalating prices of food, oil, and gas led to a rapid decline in the living conditions for most of the island’s population. As the financial crisis that began in the US expanded to all sections of the world economy, official unemployment rates in Guadeloupe reached as high as 30%.
The LKP, an umbrella group of 49 unions and grassroots organizations, took the initiative to launch its strike in January. The protestors immediately demanded a 200 Euro monthly wage increase, bringing the minimum wage up to 1,321 euros a month, significant raises for better paid workers, a 20% decrease in the price of student meals and public transportation costs, a moratorium on all foreclosures, evictions and utility cut-offs, and official recognition of the indigenous language on par with French.
The Guadeloupean protests threatened the French government to such a degree that they granted the strikers their top 20 demands and continue to negotiate on the remaining 126 mid-term and long-term demands. The LKP declared the accord signed on March 4th as an immediate victory, but only the first of its kind. Demonstrations still continue against the island’s white elite who control the majority of supermarkets, sugar mills, and agriculture.
Within weeks of its own mobilizations, the revolutionary impulse of Guadeloupe spread to its neighbouring country, Martinique, which unified its movement on February 5th and mobilized for the same demands that the Guadeloupeans were making. In Martinique, 25,000 protestors took control of the capital, Fort-de-France. The strike in Martinqiue, lead by the February 5 collective, shut down the island’s industries for 38 days. Like Guadeloupe, the majority of their demands were met, such as a $250 USD increase in monthly wages and a 20% lowering of the prices on 400 basic necessities.
And then came the wave of mobilizations in a third French colony on the other side of the world in the Indian Ocean, La Réunion, which had similar mass actions to protest the 52% poverty rate and 24% unemployment on the island. The movement’s leader, Gilles Leperlier of the Collectif des Organisations Syndicales, Politiques et Associatives de La Réunion (COSPAR) said, “Something is developing in the Overseas Territories [France's name for its colonies], a vast movement challenging the situations of privilege, a social and political movement that will not stop until the Overseas Territories have taken in hand their own destiny and put an end to the iniquity of a system that maintains them in economic dependence.”
Monopoly corporations in Canada, such as GM and Chrysler, who continue to demand concessions from Canadian workers, quiver at the thought of the revolutionary surge that could be projected by the some 225,000 CAW workers being threatened with plant foreclosures and pension cuts. The mobilization of the Caribbean population should serve as a lesson to all those
negatively affected by the current crisis of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, that only militant organization and mobilization can achieve a better future for the people.Demonstration on March 11 in St-Denis, La Réunion, a French colony in the Indian Ocean.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Lessons from Greece: It’s Right to Rebel
by ZapsBasics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard
– Rage Against the Machine
For nearly all of December of last year, and continuing into 2009, Greece has been experiencing an event that happens far too infrequently in our world: a youth-sparked rebellion that has led to a revolutionary upsurge gripping the entire country.
The fuse for the rebellion was lit when Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old-student, was killed in cold blood by police in the Greek capital, Athens, on December 6th, 2008. Alexandros had been hanging out with friends in the Exarcheia district when a verbal confrontation started with police. In a flash, one of the cops went pig and pulled out his gun and fired, killing Alexandros.
Exarcheia is well known as a hang-out for leftists, artists, and radical-minded people, and within minutes of the shooting, people from the neighbourhood were pouring in the streets. With news quickly spreading by text-messages, that night thousands gathered and began confronting and fighting the police. People also struck out at banks and other symbols of the system.
The rebellion was clearly fed by deeply-felt resentment and rage against the brutal character of Greek police – demonstrated by the fact that word of the killing sparked demonstrations and rioting in other major Greek cities. On December 7th and 8th, large demonstrations were organized in Athens, popularly attended by middle, secondary school, and university students who had walked out of classes to protest the killing. These protests led to large-scale street-fighting with the police, the cops attacking with rubber bullets and tear gas and the demonstrators responding with Molotov cocktails, rocks, and anything else they could get their hands on.
December in Greece continued with a dizzying array of protests and riots – quickly creating a movement that inspired radicals around the world – especially in Europe. Solidarity demonstrations were held in most other European countries. This outpouring of internationalism was reflected in slogans taken up by Greek rebels, such as “Greece - France : Insurrection Everywhere.”
Just as with other police terrorism provoked rebellions, like the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992, the French rebellion of 2005, or the rebellions in Montreal North in August 2008 or Oakland this January 2009, the events in Greece show the potential for upheaval that is ever-present in what on the surface appear to be stable societies. The fact remains that the deep discontent people feel under this system cannot always be contained by official channels like elections. The police brutality and disrespect, the shitty jobs, the racism, the stress of studying non-stop for a career that may or may not be there for you when you graduate... sometimes this smoulders under the surface, and sometimes it explodes.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Uprising Erupts in Montreal as Cops Murder 18-Year-Old Fredy Villanueva
by Luis Granados Ceja of Barrio Nuevo
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
In the middle of the night on August 10, 2008, youth from Montreal-Nord took to the streets to express their outrage with the racist actions of the Montreal Police. Protestors marched through the streets and set fires to cars and trash. A fire station was also burned.
The youth were responding to the police murder of 18-year-old Honduran youth Fredy Villanueva the night before, on the evening of August 9. According to witnesses, the police approached a group of youth who were playing dice and became aggressive with the group of youth. Fredy’s brother, Dany Villanueva, was singled out by the police to be searched without cause and ultimately arrested. After Dany was placed in the back of the police car, the situation quickly escalated and the police fired four shots without warning, killing Fredy. Police have refused to explain themselves for their actions. The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations in Montreal has called for a public inquiry as a result.
It is clear that the actions taken by youth on the night of August 10 are merely the boiling over of anger towards a history of racism and misconduct by police in Canada, especially toward racialized youth. The murder of Fredy Villanueva is not an isolated incident. Just last year, Toronto police murdered unarmed teenager Alwy Al-Nadhir in a similar unprovoked attack, and earlier this year, 28-year-old Native man Byron Debassige.
Communities subject to racist policing need not tolerate it anymore. Although the riots on the night of August 10 certainly got the public’s attention, it cannot bring lasting solutions. Our communities must create a broad-based movement to end racist police brutality all together.
Police must not be allowed to “investigate” each other so as to cover their own backs. We must demand justice for the murder of Fredy Villanueva, but moreover, we must organize ourselves if justice is going to be realized.Brother of murdered youth, Dany Villanueva
Friday, March 21, 2008
University of Toronto Students Occupy President's Office
Press Release
March 21, 2008 - Toronto
March 20, 2008 thirty-five University of Toronto students occupied
Simcoe Hall, the home of the President's Office, to protest a 20% fee
increase. The nonviolent sit-in was accompanied with a peaceful rally
outside the building--until the police began brutalizing those inside.
This was captured by multiple video cameras.
The students had three simple demands.
1) To be granted a meeting with President David Naylor;
2) To have the proposed fee increase removed from the University
Affairs Board meeting, scheduled to take place on March 25; and
3) To be given 15 minutes at the University Affairs Board meeting for
a presentation and discussion on broader issues of access to education
and the impacts of high tuition upon students, families and
communities.
Students attempted to deliver their letter to the University of
Toronto President, David Naylor, and to speak to other members of the
administration in Simcoe Hall about the rising costs of education in
Ontario. The administration refused to meet with the students. The
response of the University of Toronto was to violently remove students
from their peaceful sit-in. Police aggressively grabbed students and
dragged them away from the entrance of the office. The students
feared for their safety and after four hours in the building, the
police violence forced the students to leave.
Video of these events has been posted on YouTube and it can be viewed
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketNtnZQIwQ
Images can be viewed here:
http://www.edwardfwong.com/uoftact/9.jpg
http://www.edwardfwong.com/uoftact/10.jpg
Students are continuing to demand a meeting with President Naylor, and
the right to accessible and affordable education.
For more information contact:
Farshad Azadian, student member and organizer with AlwaysQuestion:
416-569-7471
Ryan Hayes, President of Arts and Science Students Union: 416-421-0879
Michal Hay, Vice-President University Affairs, University of Toronto
Students' Union: 647-802-4131.
March 21, 2008 - Toronto
March 20, 2008 thirty-five University of Toronto students occupied
Simcoe Hall, the home of the President's Office, to protest a 20% fee
increase. The nonviolent sit-in was accompanied with a peaceful rally
outside the building--until the police began brutalizing those inside.
This was captured by multiple video cameras.
The students had three simple demands.
1) To be granted a meeting with President David Naylor;
2) To have the proposed fee increase removed from the University
Affairs Board meeting, scheduled to take place on March 25; and
3) To be given 15 minutes at the University Affairs Board meeting for
a presentation and discussion on broader issues of access to education
and the impacts of high tuition upon students, families and
communities.
Students attempted to deliver their letter to the University of
Toronto President, David Naylor, and to speak to other members of the
administration in Simcoe Hall about the rising costs of education in
Ontario. The administration refused to meet with the students. The
response of the University of Toronto was to violently remove students
from their peaceful sit-in. Police aggressively grabbed students and
dragged them away from the entrance of the office. The students
feared for their safety and after four hours in the building, the
police violence forced the students to leave.
Video of these events has been posted on YouTube and it can be viewed
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketNtnZQIwQ
Images can be viewed here:
http://www.edwardfwong.com/uoftact/9.jpg
http://www.edwardfwong.com/uoftact/10.jpg
Students are continuing to demand a meeting with President Naylor, and
the right to accessible and affordable education.
For more information contact:
Farshad Azadian, student member and organizer with AlwaysQuestion:
416-569-7471
Ryan Hayes, President of Arts and Science Students Union: 416-421-0879
Michal Hay, Vice-President University Affairs, University of Toronto
Students' Union: 647-802-4131.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
NY Army Recruitment Centre bombed
Basics Editorial
A small explosive device has caused minor damage to a military recruitment centre on New York City's world famous Times Square. Since it occurred very late at night, the centre was empty and no-one was injured, leaving only one window smashed
New York's Multi-Millionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quick to tell everyone to continue shopping and sight seeing, and suggested the attack on the recruiting office was an insult to US forces currently stationed around the World.
While the White House has already stated that no terrorism was involved, media reports did seem to indicate that they were investigating this being an act of protest by individuals or groups against the US' governments War on Iraq.
This will probably scare supporters of the war who will probably be reminded of the sort of actions staged around the world in the 1960s to protest against the War in Vietnam, where U.S. Embassies and U.S. officials were targeted.
The pattern fits similar bombs tossed at the British Consulate in 2005 and the Mexican Consulate last year. US officials seem to be grasping at anything to explain what happened, including investigating some Canadians as possible suspects.
A small explosive device has caused minor damage to a military recruitment centre on New York City's world famous Times Square. Since it occurred very late at night, the centre was empty and no-one was injured, leaving only one window smashed
New York's Multi-Millionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quick to tell everyone to continue shopping and sight seeing, and suggested the attack on the recruiting office was an insult to US forces currently stationed around the World.
While the White House has already stated that no terrorism was involved, media reports did seem to indicate that they were investigating this being an act of protest by individuals or groups against the US' governments War on Iraq.
This will probably scare supporters of the war who will probably be reminded of the sort of actions staged around the world in the 1960s to protest against the War in Vietnam, where U.S. Embassies and U.S. officials were targeted.
The pattern fits similar bombs tossed at the British Consulate in 2005 and the Mexican Consulate last year. US officials seem to be grasping at anything to explain what happened, including investigating some Canadians as possible suspects.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Lakotah Declare Independence
On December 19, 2007 the Lakotah Sioux Indians broke of all of their treaties with the Government of the United States and declared the independent Republic of Lakotah, which encompasses territory from Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
A four-member delegation of the Lakotah Sioux Indians visited Washington, D.C. to formally submit their withdrawal from their treaties with the American government. The Lakotah Sioux’s legal basis for the move is based on the U.S. Constitution itself, which indicates that treaties are the highest law of the land. One of the delegates, Phyllis Young, a former indigenous representative to the United Nations, stated that “We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children.’’
The Lakotah Sioux have suffered greatly under the rule of the U.S., with a life-expectancy of 44-years for men, one of the lowest in the world, and with an infant mortality rate five times that of the average American.
Russel Means, one of the representatives of the new country and one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, declared that “We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us.” Citizens of the new country will live tax-free, and will be issued new passports and driver’s licenses.
While in Washington, representatives of the new country visited the embassies of Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and South Africa to request diplomatic recognition. Ireland and East Timor have also expressed interest in the declaration.
Duane Martin Sr., one of the Washington delegates said “after 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative...to bring freedom into its existence by taking it back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway.”
The Name of the Country is Nandigram
People’s resistance to displacement in West Bengal captures the attention of all India and the world.
In the quiet rural area of Nandigram, in West Bengal India, there has been a struggle that reflects the dreams and aspirations of an entire nation. In the last year the villagers of Nandigram have resisted the neo-liberal onslaught with their bodies and lives, and have embarrassed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM led Left Front in India and around the world. In 2006 the land of Nandigram was sold under a Special Economic Zone act to the Salim Group of Indonesia to build a chemical hub. This would result in the deprivation of land and livelihood for thousands of villagers. Sumit Chowdhury, an independent activist who had been involved in the Nandigram movement, said that the sale of the land was actually done by the Salim Group for their client DOW Chemicals. The sale of this land has been disputed and referred to as a ‘rumor’ by supporters of the ruling-party - the CPIM.
In December 2006 the people of Nandigram, fearing the loss of their lands and livelihoods, organized 41 village committees called the Bhumi Ucched Protirodh Committee (Committee Against Land Acquisition) or BUPC, to resist the sale. The BUPC then declared the area a ‘liberated zone’. On 3rd January 2007 a land the Haldia Development Authority, a State body, put up acquisition notice. This was accompanied by a lathi-charge by the police, which gave rise to a mass upsurge. Sumit Chowdhury said that 80% of people in Nandigaram supported the mass upsurge against the police, which resulted in the police having to flee the area.
On 14th March the CPIM, determined to re-capture the land and restore their authority in the area, sent approximately 2000 police officers accompanied by an armed and trained group of CPM members. The village committees heard of the upcoming surge of forces into the area assembled approximately 2000 villagers to resist them. The police attempted to occupy the area by shooting at the assembled villagers, resulting in 14 deaths. The villagers assembled included women as well as men, and even some children. Suma Ghosh, a student at Delhi University and part of a fact-finding team in the area, told us that women have been instrumental in organizing the resistance in Nandigram and have formed an organization called the Mathangiri Mataila Somithi (MMS). Vanessa, a student from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and also a part of the fact-finding team, told me that the MMS has a lot of ‘feminist potential’ and had been using their organization to help resolve family disputes and intervene in domestic abuse.
On 16th March 30,000 villagers recaptured part of the area. Since then there have been repeated attacks by the police forces to recapture the entire area, which has resulted in dozens of unarmed villagers being killed. This included a rally held by protestors on the 9th November 2007 which resulted in the harassment and beating of 800-900 people. The CPM having effectively ‘recaptured’ Nandigram has been harassing the villagers despite the fact that the CPM led West Bengal State government has declared that the land will not be sold. Even reporters and fact-finding teams that have entered the area have been harassed and attacked by the CPM cadre in the area. However, the BUPC is re-organizing and there is a great likelihood that there will be more violence as the people of Nandigram attempt to ensure that their lands and livelihoods are safe in their own hands through the restoration of Nandigram as a ‘liberated zone’.
Nandigram, like many areas around the country had been allocated for ‘development’ under the SEZ act. And like many areas they have resisted the sale of their land and the destruction of their livelihoods. I was repeatedly told by activists and common people alike that the focus of this article should not be on the atrocities that have occurred there, rather I should focus on the people’s brave resistance. Out of the terror and harassment that the people of Nandigram have had to endure at the hands of the CPM there springs forth a dream of a new future in which land will belong to the tiller and there will be freedom from patriarchy and imperialism. Nandigram is not just the name of a village, but is the name of the whole country.
History of Struggle: The Winnipeg General Strike
As a new regular feature, Basics will cover important events in the history of popular struggle.
Canada’s working peoples have a proud history of resistance and, even today, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike is a great example to learn from.
In spring of 1919, employers refused to negotiate with workers who wanted higher wages and union recognition in Winnipeg-based building and metal jobs. Workers turned to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC) for help and within a week a democratic vote was held in which over 11,000 members of the WTLC chose to hold a general strike in support of the building and metal workers demands. Less than 600 votes were cast against the strike. Based on these results and widespread support from other unions, the WTLC formed a Central Strike Committee and declared a general strike.
On May 15, 1919, at 11am the general strike began with approximately 30,000 workers participating over the 6 weeks it lasted. As word of the general strike spread across the country, workers in other areas declared their solidarity. Sympathy strikes were called in Brandon, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Regina, Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, and in as many as 20 other towns.
The response of the federal government to the Winnipeg strikers was similar to what we might expect today: members of the federal parliament refused to meet with the WTLC or the Central Strike Committee but instead met only with a committee formed by employers, business elites and media. This group represented no more than 1000 Winnipeg citizens.
The federal government then ordered all workers back to work under threat of being fired. On June 6, the federal cabinet changed the Immigration Act to allow for the arrest and deportation of “enemy aliens”. Workers not born in Canada were targeted as agitators and publicly referred to as “alien scum”. On June 17, twelve strike-leaders and strikers born in other countries were arrested and held in Stone Mountain Penitentiary, outside of Winnipeg. Some were later deported.
Workers and strike-supporters were outraged and planned a parade and rally on Saturday June 21, 1919, now known as “Bloody Saturday”. The Royal North-West Mounted Police were used by the government to break up the crowds, which they did by killing one worker and seriously injuring at least 30 workers. A special police force put together by the City of Winnipeg and the Canadian army then beat many workers using baseball bats and wagon spokes.
Faced with the combined forces of government and employers, and under constant threats of violence and intimidation, the strikers decided to return to work in late June 1919.
The militancy set off in Canada amongst workers for almost thirty years after the Winnipeg General Strike finally resulted in a victory of union recognition, collective bargaining, and social welfare programs for the unemployed.
It is disappointing today to see these hard-won rights whittled away by high-paid labor bureaucrats like Buzz Hargrove (see CAW/Magna, p4). Let us take the lessons of the Winnipeg Strike and organize for higher wages, better working conditions in our workplaces, and a better society!
Canada’s working peoples have a proud history of resistance and, even today, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike is a great example to learn from.
In spring of 1919, employers refused to negotiate with workers who wanted higher wages and union recognition in Winnipeg-based building and metal jobs. Workers turned to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC) for help and within a week a democratic vote was held in which over 11,000 members of the WTLC chose to hold a general strike in support of the building and metal workers demands. Less than 600 votes were cast against the strike. Based on these results and widespread support from other unions, the WTLC formed a Central Strike Committee and declared a general strike.
On May 15, 1919, at 11am the general strike began with approximately 30,000 workers participating over the 6 weeks it lasted. As word of the general strike spread across the country, workers in other areas declared their solidarity. Sympathy strikes were called in Brandon, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Regina, Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, and in as many as 20 other towns.
The response of the federal government to the Winnipeg strikers was similar to what we might expect today: members of the federal parliament refused to meet with the WTLC or the Central Strike Committee but instead met only with a committee formed by employers, business elites and media. This group represented no more than 1000 Winnipeg citizens.
The federal government then ordered all workers back to work under threat of being fired. On June 6, the federal cabinet changed the Immigration Act to allow for the arrest and deportation of “enemy aliens”. Workers not born in Canada were targeted as agitators and publicly referred to as “alien scum”. On June 17, twelve strike-leaders and strikers born in other countries were arrested and held in Stone Mountain Penitentiary, outside of Winnipeg. Some were later deported.
Workers and strike-supporters were outraged and planned a parade and rally on Saturday June 21, 1919, now known as “Bloody Saturday”. The Royal North-West Mounted Police were used by the government to break up the crowds, which they did by killing one worker and seriously injuring at least 30 workers. A special police force put together by the City of Winnipeg and the Canadian army then beat many workers using baseball bats and wagon spokes.
Faced with the combined forces of government and employers, and under constant threats of violence and intimidation, the strikers decided to return to work in late June 1919.
The militancy set off in Canada amongst workers for almost thirty years after the Winnipeg General Strike finally resulted in a victory of union recognition, collective bargaining, and social welfare programs for the unemployed.
It is disappointing today to see these hard-won rights whittled away by high-paid labor bureaucrats like Buzz Hargrove (see CAW/Magna, p4). Let us take the lessons of the Winnipeg Strike and organize for higher wages, better working conditions in our workplaces, and a better society!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Shawn Brant: “These Are Survival Issues. People Are Not Going to Stop”
Mohawk activist Shawn Brant speaks on the June 29th National Aboriginal Day of Action blockade that shut down highway 401, brought trade to a standstill and pushed First Native land claims to the forefront.
Basics: Can tell us some of the history of the land claims and the quarry?
Brant: It came from frustration in dealing with the Government of Canada and its agreements that it has made in the past. We felt strongly that this particular claim stood as an example of all the claims that were going on across the country. We shut down a company that was mining on the very lands that we knew to be ours and that the government had admitted was ours and yet it allowed for mining to continue. So we saw it as a basic, simple indignity that people in the broader public could understand. Don’t truck away the land while we are sitting at the table talking about it. What we found was that we had to physically put our people there in order to prevent this from happening. We wanted the process to continue in a way that was fair and dignified at a table that was balanced with justice and people working towards a resolution but that didn’t happen. That indignity of having to sit on our land and prevent it from being strip mined grew and grew and we started a growing campaign of economic destruction and we got into a lot of situations that have culminated recently. This claim went back 170 years and it is typical of every other one. There were agreements; there were broken promises, lies, it was about theft and even the government itself admits it cannot justify theft under these circumstances. Having that admission, though, didn’t mean the issue was resolved.
Basics: Its funny that you mentioned negotiating land while trucking it away. In Chile, that is something the Pinochet government did to Bolivia back in the 80s. Pinochet, with his fascist government said okay we will give you the land while he was trucking away the minerals under it.
Brant: It is something on going for 100s of years and when you see something as simple as this can’t be resolved, it is understood by people that nothing can resolved with the state in terms of land claim recognition. It instills and entrenches in our minds the indignities we face on a constant basis. The land is yours, the government admits it is yours, but that doesn’t mean you are going to get it. When its yours and you know that you are fundamentally obligated to take responsibility and to take whatever action for reclamation. You are there you defend your home like someone was coming to hurt your kids and you take steps to get it recognized internationally to make sure it never happens again.
Basics: This wasn’t the first time the OPP, RCMP, or Armed Forces has engaged in activities over you has it?
Brant: It is not our first contact with them. We are a fighting community. We have engaged the Canadian Military and the OPP in the past. We have had Mohawk nations come out and defend lands where their ancestors were buried from having condominiums placed upon them. When we talk about a gravel quarry, the state has clearly demonstrated it is willing to develop where our ancestors are buried and we have had to come out with arms to defend that. I find people always appeal to compassion and sensibilities. People need to be aware that a different approach has to be taken when the government operates in that way. They are turning over the soil where our ancestors are buried. We are constantly placed in a situation of confrontation and we can’t back down. Gas lines and pipelines are continually being put up in our backyards because non-natives did not want them and our land is cheap. There are 400 native nations across this country where CN touches their land and major highways too. It’s frightening that natives have faced indignities for hundreds of years. If you want to take $1 dollar from us we will cost you $1000 dollars. We have shut the CN mainline down 3 times, we have shut the 401 down and the detour routes, we have closed towns and businesses too. We have shut it all down.
Basics: What has been the estimated cost of it?
Brant: I estimate about half a billion dollars. That’s over the simple matter of the quarry license. That has brought us to the forefront of land claims. Land claims turn nasty when the situation in the communities gives rise to militancy. Maybe you can’t understand that you live in poverty, that you drink polluted water, that your kids kill themselves. But when someone encroaches and tries to put up a development we can see that and we can stop it. Maybe we can’t stop the social issues but we can physically stop that development. That’s why we fight.
Basics: With the increased militancy when the state tries to steal land there has been some news media who denounce what you are doing.
Brant: When we closed the rail line in April, they saw how dirty and messy that is, people saw how far the state is willing to go to further the free flowing economy. My brother who is a lawyer got a call in the middle of the night by someone to talk me out of June 29th or he would be charged with collusion and they will get my body from the morgue. They sent people out to tell us if we don’t leave the highway we will be dead. It isn’t the line of the government or the police to threaten everyone with death but that is how it is in First Nations communities. When Paul Fontaine or the band chiefs stepped down, they did it under duress that they will spend a long time in jail. This shouldn’t diminish their courage. These are simple aspects of life necessary for survival. We want the basics for our kids. It is a struggle for survival.
Basics: In Lawrence Heights, we have been organizing people around the important issue of displacement and the selling of their land to developers. Do you see any parallels in terms of displacement?
Brant: People are aware of Kasheshewan - a modern crisis in Ontario. There was an attempt to displace that community and move them into North Bay. Not because they wanted to fix their water, but because they discovered resource deposits in the shores of James Bay. You are only in a spot until resources are found and then you are moved. The government and systems of capital are designed in order to maintain a degree of suffering and poverty in a segment of society. If can’t make it then you sleep on the streets. If you can’t feed your child on the $100 dollars a month then your child will go to someone who will get $1000 dollars to raise that same child. These are fundamental indignities that go across racial barriers. We are lucky to live in a community that can organize and has strength to do those things. People have to realize that outside of reservations, Lawrence Heights, Regent Park and elsewhere there needs to be strong resistance and mobilization against encroachment on communities. There has to be more than passive resistance and appealing to feelings. I got released on bail a couple days ago after being held because of the “threat of re-offending”. My offense was trying to bring attention to social issues that affect First Nations people on a daily basis, like drinking water and hunger. If that is my threat to re-offend then who is offending who? The government needs to be held responsible for its actions. A community like this is one that can do that.
Basics: How long were you in for?
Brant: A couple months
Basics: Basically as a political prisoner - and you weren’t the only one in jail.
Brant: There are people still in under different circumstances. There are people on the run from outstanding charges in Caledonia. I have never considered the term political or otherwise. When you are in the institution, you are just a prisoner. We were in there because we couldn’t let things keep going the way they are going. We have an obligation as Mohawk men to seek every peaceful solution before we become more aggressive. We have done that up to this point. If nothing happens then there is an obligation to continue. These are survival issues. People are not going to stop.
Basics: Anything you’d like to say to the Lawrence Heights community?
Brant: The message that needs to go to all communities is that they need to stand up to the injustices that are perpetrated by government. Native issues need to be translated to a more common front to bring about a better government. We are concerned about housing issues, and people sleeping on the street or finding enough food. Society at large need to start working together and go beyond the classifications of communities and when things like this emerge they will all stand and bring real justice to everyone. There could have been a large response on June 29th if people were attuned to the political advantages that existed for them at that time. They have to accept that Mohawks are going to stand and fight. We will take the government down until it has real respect and honour for the people it supposedly represents.
Basics: Thank you Shawn Brant.
Basics: Can tell us some of the history of the land claims and the quarry?
Brant: It came from frustration in dealing with the Government of Canada and its agreements that it has made in the past. We felt strongly that this particular claim stood as an example of all the claims that were going on across the country. We shut down a company that was mining on the very lands that we knew to be ours and that the government had admitted was ours and yet it allowed for mining to continue. So we saw it as a basic, simple indignity that people in the broader public could understand. Don’t truck away the land while we are sitting at the table talking about it. What we found was that we had to physically put our people there in order to prevent this from happening. We wanted the process to continue in a way that was fair and dignified at a table that was balanced with justice and people working towards a resolution but that didn’t happen. That indignity of having to sit on our land and prevent it from being strip mined grew and grew and we started a growing campaign of economic destruction and we got into a lot of situations that have culminated recently. This claim went back 170 years and it is typical of every other one. There were agreements; there were broken promises, lies, it was about theft and even the government itself admits it cannot justify theft under these circumstances. Having that admission, though, didn’t mean the issue was resolved.
Basics: Its funny that you mentioned negotiating land while trucking it away. In Chile, that is something the Pinochet government did to Bolivia back in the 80s. Pinochet, with his fascist government said okay we will give you the land while he was trucking away the minerals under it.
Brant: It is something on going for 100s of years and when you see something as simple as this can’t be resolved, it is understood by people that nothing can resolved with the state in terms of land claim recognition. It instills and entrenches in our minds the indignities we face on a constant basis. The land is yours, the government admits it is yours, but that doesn’t mean you are going to get it. When its yours and you know that you are fundamentally obligated to take responsibility and to take whatever action for reclamation. You are there you defend your home like someone was coming to hurt your kids and you take steps to get it recognized internationally to make sure it never happens again.
Basics: This wasn’t the first time the OPP, RCMP, or Armed Forces has engaged in activities over you has it?
Brant: It is not our first contact with them. We are a fighting community. We have engaged the Canadian Military and the OPP in the past. We have had Mohawk nations come out and defend lands where their ancestors were buried from having condominiums placed upon them. When we talk about a gravel quarry, the state has clearly demonstrated it is willing to develop where our ancestors are buried and we have had to come out with arms to defend that. I find people always appeal to compassion and sensibilities. People need to be aware that a different approach has to be taken when the government operates in that way. They are turning over the soil where our ancestors are buried. We are constantly placed in a situation of confrontation and we can’t back down. Gas lines and pipelines are continually being put up in our backyards because non-natives did not want them and our land is cheap. There are 400 native nations across this country where CN touches their land and major highways too. It’s frightening that natives have faced indignities for hundreds of years. If you want to take $1 dollar from us we will cost you $1000 dollars. We have shut the CN mainline down 3 times, we have shut the 401 down and the detour routes, we have closed towns and businesses too. We have shut it all down.
Basics: What has been the estimated cost of it?
Brant: I estimate about half a billion dollars. That’s over the simple matter of the quarry license. That has brought us to the forefront of land claims. Land claims turn nasty when the situation in the communities gives rise to militancy. Maybe you can’t understand that you live in poverty, that you drink polluted water, that your kids kill themselves. But when someone encroaches and tries to put up a development we can see that and we can stop it. Maybe we can’t stop the social issues but we can physically stop that development. That’s why we fight.
Basics: With the increased militancy when the state tries to steal land there has been some news media who denounce what you are doing.
Brant: When we closed the rail line in April, they saw how dirty and messy that is, people saw how far the state is willing to go to further the free flowing economy. My brother who is a lawyer got a call in the middle of the night by someone to talk me out of June 29th or he would be charged with collusion and they will get my body from the morgue. They sent people out to tell us if we don’t leave the highway we will be dead. It isn’t the line of the government or the police to threaten everyone with death but that is how it is in First Nations communities. When Paul Fontaine or the band chiefs stepped down, they did it under duress that they will spend a long time in jail. This shouldn’t diminish their courage. These are simple aspects of life necessary for survival. We want the basics for our kids. It is a struggle for survival.
Basics: In Lawrence Heights, we have been organizing people around the important issue of displacement and the selling of their land to developers. Do you see any parallels in terms of displacement?
Brant: People are aware of Kasheshewan - a modern crisis in Ontario. There was an attempt to displace that community and move them into North Bay. Not because they wanted to fix their water, but because they discovered resource deposits in the shores of James Bay. You are only in a spot until resources are found and then you are moved. The government and systems of capital are designed in order to maintain a degree of suffering and poverty in a segment of society. If can’t make it then you sleep on the streets. If you can’t feed your child on the $100 dollars a month then your child will go to someone who will get $1000 dollars to raise that same child. These are fundamental indignities that go across racial barriers. We are lucky to live in a community that can organize and has strength to do those things. People have to realize that outside of reservations, Lawrence Heights, Regent Park and elsewhere there needs to be strong resistance and mobilization against encroachment on communities. There has to be more than passive resistance and appealing to feelings. I got released on bail a couple days ago after being held because of the “threat of re-offending”. My offense was trying to bring attention to social issues that affect First Nations people on a daily basis, like drinking water and hunger. If that is my threat to re-offend then who is offending who? The government needs to be held responsible for its actions. A community like this is one that can do that.
Basics: How long were you in for?
Brant: A couple months
Basics: Basically as a political prisoner - and you weren’t the only one in jail.
Brant: There are people still in under different circumstances. There are people on the run from outstanding charges in Caledonia. I have never considered the term political or otherwise. When you are in the institution, you are just a prisoner. We were in there because we couldn’t let things keep going the way they are going. We have an obligation as Mohawk men to seek every peaceful solution before we become more aggressive. We have done that up to this point. If nothing happens then there is an obligation to continue. These are survival issues. People are not going to stop.
Basics: Anything you’d like to say to the Lawrence Heights community?
Brant: The message that needs to go to all communities is that they need to stand up to the injustices that are perpetrated by government. Native issues need to be translated to a more common front to bring about a better government. We are concerned about housing issues, and people sleeping on the street or finding enough food. Society at large need to start working together and go beyond the classifications of communities and when things like this emerge they will all stand and bring real justice to everyone. There could have been a large response on June 29th if people were attuned to the political advantages that existed for them at that time. They have to accept that Mohawks are going to stand and fight. We will take the government down until it has real respect and honour for the people it supposedly represents.
Basics: Thank you Shawn Brant.
Monday, November 05, 2007
2,000+ March Against SPP
Police agents exposed by the people.
As the three leaders and corporate heads met on the grounds of the “Chateau Montebello” in Quebec to plot their agenda, more than 2000 people from across Canada and North America were also present on the streets outside the fortress- to demonstrate their absolute opposition to the Security and Prosperity Summit.
Hundreds of silent, armored, armed and gas-masked soldiers, riot police and RCMP officers prevented the demonstrators (ranging from bus loads of Torontonians to Mexican Trade Union leaders) from coming anywhere near the summit or even from delivering an anti-SPP petition signed by 10,000 Canadians to the politicians claiming to represent them.
As has been exposed by video and photo evidence and covered even in the mainstream press, the “security” forces in Montebello attempted to provoke violence within the demonstration from its very beginning. Within two hours into the protest, three masked, rock-carrying men wearing boots identical to those of the Quebec Provincial Police Force (SQ) appeared in the peaceful section of the protest. Almost immediately identified as agents- and confronted by angry protestors- the provocateurs easily slipped into Police ranks and were then “arrested” by their fellow officers. In an embarrassing confession after days of adamant denials (and only after they were caught red-handed, or yellow booted), the SQ has admitted these men were indeed disguised cops, but outrageously claimed that they were not trying to incite violence!
Unfortunately, the fact that its agents were exposed did not stop the SQ from attacking the demo. After most media left to file their reports by 6pm, police indiscriminately fired over 72 cans of tear gas along with rubber bullets. Several protestors were wounded - some severely enough to need medical care.
As the three leaders and corporate heads met on the grounds of the “Chateau Montebello” in Quebec to plot their agenda, more than 2000 people from across Canada and North America were also present on the streets outside the fortress- to demonstrate their absolute opposition to the Security and Prosperity Summit.
Hundreds of silent, armored, armed and gas-masked soldiers, riot police and RCMP officers prevented the demonstrators (ranging from bus loads of Torontonians to Mexican Trade Union leaders) from coming anywhere near the summit or even from delivering an anti-SPP petition signed by 10,000 Canadians to the politicians claiming to represent them.
As has been exposed by video and photo evidence and covered even in the mainstream press, the “security” forces in Montebello attempted to provoke violence within the demonstration from its very beginning. Within two hours into the protest, three masked, rock-carrying men wearing boots identical to those of the Quebec Provincial Police Force (SQ) appeared in the peaceful section of the protest. Almost immediately identified as agents- and confronted by angry protestors- the provocateurs easily slipped into Police ranks and were then “arrested” by their fellow officers. In an embarrassing confession after days of adamant denials (and only after they were caught red-handed, or yellow booted), the SQ has admitted these men were indeed disguised cops, but outrageously claimed that they were not trying to incite violence!
Unfortunately, the fact that its agents were exposed did not stop the SQ from attacking the demo. After most media left to file their reports by 6pm, police indiscriminately fired over 72 cans of tear gas along with rubber bullets. Several protestors were wounded - some severely enough to need medical care.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Immigrant Workers Organize Accross N. America For May Day
Across North America, immigrant workers, workers of colour, and their supporters came out in record numbers for this year’s May Day.
May Day started in 1886 as a commemoration for workers killed by Chicago police during a demonstration demanding an 8 hr work day and the later execution of several worker organizers on fraudulent charges. International workers day is celebrated as a holiday everywhere in the World and is a day when workers go to the streets to demand peace, equality and justice.
In Los Angeles, over 100 000 workers - largely comprised of Latinos - assembled in MacArthur Park during marches calling for the recognition of the rights of undocumented workers. The immigrant workers movement has been organizing to fight the Bush administration’s offensive against Mexican and Latino undocumented workers in the Southern US. Their work has included a massive show of working peoples power in 2006 with a day-long strike and demonstration that had the participation of millions across the United States.
This year’s L.A. demonstrations were met with force from the notoriously racist and brutal Los Angeles Police Department (L.A.P.D). Hundreds of riot police attempted to break up the peaceful demonstrations with batons, shields and rubber coated bullets.
According to eyewitness accounts, hundreds of people “were shot, beaten by night sticks and run out of the park.” Calls from Latino and progressive organizations to fire Police Chief Bratton have been largely ignored by the Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa.
Sizeable demonstrations were held in Canadian cities as well, including a rally in Montreal that attracted 2000 workers. Hundreds of radical demonstrators staged a breakaway from the more conservative trade union led rally and marched to a nearby military base where they denounced the war in Afghanistan.
In Toronto, May Day organizing took place on the weekend beginning with a demonstration of workers, students and activists calling for the recognition of undocumented workers in Canada. Over 2500 people filled Christie Pitts Park calling for the end to the deportation of undocumented workers and their families that began under the Liberal governments and has continued under Harper’s Conservatives.
Also on the weekend, progressive Latino group Pa’delante organized a workshop at San Lorenzo Church on organizing in the Latino community around workers rights and livable wages. After addressing the mass of 150 workers and family members, organizers spoke with members of the community urging an organized response within the Latino community aimed at getting people to mobilize for a livable wage.
The increasing level of activity on and around May Day from workers in North America shows the rising level of consciousness and organization among working people. The government knows this, and they think that they can ‘discourage’ this by using measures like police brutality against the people. The people must show the police, the government and the bosses that they will not be deterred and that the struggle will continue.
Hands Off Satur Ocampo!
Congressman. The image evokes fancy offices with big leather chairs, powerful and wealthy members of the elite in expensive suits making deals. For Satur Ocampo, a congressman in the Philippines, his position has led in a very different direction: to a prison cell and the danger of assassination. Ocampo’s pro-people politics and leadership of the Bayan Muna (People First) party-list has earned him the ire of the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and placed his freedom and life in grave danger.
Ocampo, the son of landless peasants, has a long history as a political activist fighting for social justice. As a student during the late 1960’s he was a founding member of Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) and the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism. When the Marcos military dictatorship took over the Philippines in 1972, Ocampo went underground and was instrumental in the foundation of the National Democratic Front, uniting the forces fighting to overthrow the dictatorship.
In 1976, Ocampo was captured by the fascist government and for the next nine years held in various prison camps where he was regularly and brutally tortured. Even in the camps he continued to organize, leading protest actions by thousands of political prisoners. Despite his long imprisonment and cruel treatment, the military courts set up by the dictatorship could not convict him of any crime. After nine long years of captivity, Ocampo escaped from prison and rejoined the underground movement.
With the fall of the dictatorship in 1986, Ocampo resurfaced as the lead negotiator for the NDF with the new civilian government of Corazon Aquino. Hopes were high for a peaceful settlement to the civil war in the countryside. These hopes were dashed when Aquino ordered the military to open fire on peasant demonstrators during a rally against Aquino’s policy of fake land reform. 18 farmers were killed and scores more injured. The peace talks collapsed and Ocampo returned to the underground until he was captured again in 1989. Again the courts could not convict him and after three years in prison he was released.
Popular pressure by the common people of the Philippines forced the government to allow the social movements to form party-lists to run in elections. Ocampo was a founding member and leader of Bayan Muna party-list and was elected to Congress in 2001 and again in 2004. The Filipino people saw tangible results in the form of the Overseas Voting Act and Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, legislation introduced by Bayan Muna and enacted into law. Ocampo spearheaded the Legislators Against War alliance to oppose the American war in Iraq and elsewhere as well as the Legislators-Businessmen-People’s Forum to protect Philippine businesses and agriculture from the destructive effects of globalization.
The Arroyo government, more concerned with protecting American business interests and the power of local elites, has responded to Bayan Muna’s success with repression and violence. They attempted to silence Ocampo with trumped-up multiple murder charges allegedly committed in 1984 – while Ocampo was still in prison! The weakness of the state’s case was proved in April when the Supreme Court criticized the state’s case as “defective” and ordered Ocampo released on bail, even though the charges were non-bailable. Despite this victory, Bayan Muna members and supporters are still being arrested, beaten, kidnapped, or murdered by security forces.
Bayan Muna is not the only group facing repression. Rep. Crispin Beltran, a 75 year-old labour leader and member of Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) party-list has been held for 16 months in a military prison hospital, also under trumped-up charges of rebellion against the Marcos dictatorship 25 years ago. There has also been an escalation in the number assassinations, particularly against members and supporters of progressive party-lists, trade unions, peasant, womens, and indigenous peoples associations, human rights monitors, and even members of the clergy.
The method of killing is repeated over and over again: two young men on motorcycle shoot their victims in broad daylight in close proximity to a military or police camp. Witnesses to assassinations are themselves killed in “mop up” operations. While all evidence points towards state security forces as the perpetrators investigations are done only for show, arrests are incredibly rare and convictions rarer still. After 840 killings and 200 disappearances since Arroyo’s taking office, only three low-ranking soldiers have ever been charged.
On a business trip to China last year, Prime Minister Harper promised the Canadian people that he would not “sell out important Canadian values - our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights” for the sake of trade and investment. Yet with $1.5 billion in trade between the Philippines and Canada every year, the Canadian government has failed to use its influence to pressure the Arroyo regime to stop harassing and killing their political opponents. People in this country must demand that their government stop supporting the Arroyo regime!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
French Youth Continue Uprising Against Police Brutality, Poverty
On the first anniversary of the riots which spread across Europe against the police brutality, racism and poverty faced by African and Arab immigrants, French youth have again brought these issues to the forefront.
On October 27th, French youth from poor suburbs of France rioted against the state oppression which last year claimed the life of two teenagers and set off country wide uprisings against racism, chronic unemployment and poverty faced by African and Arab immigrants in France. On October 27, 2005 two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore were electrocuted after climbing into an electrical sub-station in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Friends and locals say that this was an attempt to hide from police.
Just two days earlier, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy says that a Paris suburb mostly comprised of immigrants of African and Arab descent says that crime-ridden neighbourhoods should be "cleaned with a power hose".
Responding to this continued violence and oppression, youth from across working class neighbourhoods in France took to the streets to express their unwillingness to live under these conditions. In the two week urban uprising that ensued, more than 10,000 cars were set ablaze and 300 buildings firebombed.
The uprisings spread across France and even into Belgium
and Germany, vividly connecting the common issues faced by immigrants of various nations living in Europe. These uprisings were successful in bringing the world’s attention to the condition of immigrant people in Europe and in providing an important lesson to the emerging movements for immigrant rights which have sprung up all over Europe and North America.
Not surprisingly, the French governments’ pledge to address the core issues have largely been empty words and little has changed for working people. Nevertheless, their example and that of the Latino movement in the United States which organized a work, school, buying stoppage and mass demonstration last year in the United States demonstrates that the rights of working people can only be upheld by the people militantly asserting themselves.
As we head into a recession, Harper’s government is likely to try and increase its targeting of immigrant workers in order to distract and divide working people as a whole. People need to unite in order to prevent this from happening, and assert that the right of all working people to jobs, education and inclusion is non-negotiable!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Congratulations DPR Korea!
On October 9th, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced “with 100% of sheer indigenous wisdom and technology… under secure conditions… at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation” the successful underground testing of a nuclear bomb. Predictably, the United States blasted the test as a “provocative act threatening international peace and stability” and threatened sanctions.The corporate media has been demonizing Kim Jong Il, calling him a "madman" for wanting a nuclear bomb. But given the world situation, wouldn't he be insane not to? Look no farther than Iraq. The Saddam regime in Iraq destroyed their stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons (supplied by the United States during the Iran/Iraq war it should be noted), agreed to weapons inspections, and never had a nuclear weapons program. Yet for the crime of nationalising its oil production, the United States killed 1.5 million Iraqis through a decade of sanctions and bombings, then invaded and occupied the country, established a puppet government, and fomented civil war, killing an additional 600,000+ in the process. The United States (along with Japan) has been threatening to do the same to the DPRK since the end of Korean War in 1953. The DPRK has repeatedly sought one-on-one negotiations with the US to end hostilities and to sign a mutual non-aggression pact. In other words, they want peace. The US has rejected these calls and continues to maintain tens of thousands of its troops in South Korea, along with aviation, artillery, and armoured brigades. In these conditions, the only way for the DPRK to maintain its national sovereignty is to have sufficient military force to deter the United States from turning them into another Iraq.
That the United States would rattle its sabers over the DPRK's testing of a nuclear bomb is beyond hypocritical. The US has a stockpile of over 10,000 nuclear weapons - more than enough to destroy all life on Earth - and have conducted 1,127 nuclear tests of their own. They are the only country in the world to maintain a "first strike" policy and under the Bush regime have amended that policy to include "first strikes" against even non-nuclear adversaries. They are also the only country to actually use nuclear weapons in warfare. They bombed the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki even though they knew that the Japanese were attempting to open surrender negotiations via the Soviet Union. If nuclear disarmament has to start anywhere, it's in the United States. Until then, countries targeted by imperialism have the right to defend themselves!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
Posts
