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Saturday, October 23, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2004---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW! MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW! WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURSDAY, OCT. 28, 7PM, GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303 (NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* NEXT BAUAW MEETING TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 7 P.M. 1380 VALENCIA STREET (BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS) Dear All, One thing is for sure, the war is not over and a new, massive Offensive against the people of Iraq is about to begin-right after the elections, of course. We can't let this go on. We have to come together in a massive outpouring of opposition to this war- bigger than Feb. 15/16. Vote Yes on N! Bring all the troops home now! Money for Human Needs, not war! All out Nov. 3rd, 5pm, Powell and Market Streets, S.F. March to 24th and Mission. Come to the meeting with your ideas for building these actions and for future actions. Peace and solidarity, Bonnie ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) An Evening of Anti-War Culture: Art, Comment, Spoken Word, Poetry, Music in support of Prop N Saturday, October 23, 4-7 PM 523 Gallery, 523 Sutter between Powell and Mason near Union Square 2) BVHP mothers fight for their children's environmental health by Marie Harrison http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/bvhpmothers102004.shtml 3) After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law By TIM GOLDEN WASHINGTON October 24, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/worldspecial2/24gitmo.html?h p&ex=1098590400&en=65eec9e56f90971f&ei=5094&partner=homepage 4) Rebel Attacks Kill 12 Iraqis; G.I.'s Injured By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. BAGHDAD, Iraq October 24, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/middleeast/24iraq.html?hp&ex =1098590400&en=34534b10fa606fde&ei=5094&partner=homepage 5) CORRUPTION ACCUSATIONS Memos Warned of Billing Fraud by Firm in Iraq By ERIK ECKHOLM October 23, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/23whistle.html 6) Wife of Soldier Sentenced in Prison Abuse Scandal Speaks Out By Brian Witte The Associated Press Baltimore Friday 22 October 2004 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102304V.shtml 7) Stand in Solidarity with the People of Haiti 8) Safeguarding Colombia's Oil By JUAN FORERO PUERTO VEGA, Colombia October 22, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22colombia.html?ore f=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) An Evening of Anti-War Culture: Art, Comment, Spoken Word, Poetry, Music in support of Prop N Saturday, October 23, 4-7 PM 523 Gallery, 523 Sutter between Powell and Mason near Union Square Art: OUTRAGE exhibit of 60 paintings and sculpture by Sheila Haligan-Waltz www.outrage2004.org Program Includes: > Matt Gonzalez, President of SF Board of Supervisors > Neeli Cherkovski, writer in residence New College Spoken word by members of the Molotov Mouths * Outspoken Word Troupe > School of the Arts Creative Writing Program Students > Ilya Kaminski > Music by John Duke > and more Refreshments served Suggested donation $5-$250 No one turned away for lack of funds If you want to be in the program contact Jim Dorenkott, 415-240-8839 More info: contact Howard Wallace 415-861-0318 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) BVHP mothers fight for their children's environmental health by Marie Harrison http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/bvhpmothers102004.shtml With San Francisco's No. 1 polluter, the Hunters Point power plant, as a backdrop, BVHP residents teach about environmental racism at a People's Earth Day celebration. Photo: www.greenaction.org (Go to web site to view image.) Young mothers straight out of Hunters Point - fighting for the environmental health of their community. It's a great story and a source of pride for all of us! Tessie Ester, coordinator for the "Mothers Committee" and president of the Huntersview Tenants Association said it best: "We want thing to change. We have to fight for our community and our children. We know we can't do it all, but it's time each one of us did something." She is always emotional when she is talking about her community: "You realize that people in Bay View Hunters Point are still eating mercury contaminated fish? It's a disgrace that our people are getting cancer because nobody took the time to tell them the simple truth." That was one of the first projects that the Mothers Committee took on. Fifteen mothers canvassed the community door-to-door, handing out leaflets on the dangers of subsistence fishing and telling their neighbors about the dangers of eating fish from the Bay. Toxins like DDE, chlordane, selenium, mercury and dioxins. "These were things we had never heard of," said Ester. "It's no wonder we have one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the Bay Area." The flier the Mothers Committee put out explained the dangers of each chemical and the health risks when toxins accumulate in the body. "It was tough to decide where to begin," said Sabrina Warren, mother of three. "This community is so screwed up - it's a toxic soup. "She stops to listen to her 8-year-old talk about school work and continues, "I still feel like Hunters Point Power Plant poses the biggest danger to our children. The Mothers Committee did research on the plant. Did you know that it sends up 600 tons of pollution every year!" She looks angry and continues, "It's about time that we stop being sick and just get plain mad! Gov. Schwarzenegger and Mayor Newsom better start listening, because we're going to come gunning for them next. And the ISO! Who gave these people the right to make decisions about our lives? They don't even live here." The Mothers Committee started out more than a year ago as a collaboration between Huntersview Tenants Association and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. The official name was "Bayview Hunters Point Mothers Environmental Health and Justice Committee," but that was a mouthful, so soon it was shortened to the Mothers Committee. The goal is to educate a new generation of environmental advocates, mothers from public housing, to fight for their own and their children's futures. Mothers Committee meetings were always open to the public and tended to be spirited. Participants know first hand how their community is being destroyed by pollution and neglect. PG&E was a favorite subject. Everyone had a horror story about the plant or their electric bill. Early on, it became a priority for the Mothers Committee. "Everyone knows that that plant should have been closed down years ago," said Monica Autry. "Government agencies look right through you like you were invisible. Our young men and woman can't get jobs and can't take care of their families - and to add insult to injury, die a little at a time to keep the lights on in other parts of the Bay Area." "Remember how Willie Brown said we'd get jobs when they put in the light rail?"she asks. "We all know what happened to that promise." The Mothers Committee set their targets high. They lobbied the city, state agencies and even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They also circulated a petition calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Independent System Operator (ISO) to remove the Reliability Must Run Contract from PG&E's Hunters Point Power Plant. Going door to door, they collected more than 5,000 signatures that they plan to deliver to the state capital. "We've listened to promises long enough,"says Ester, "Now it's time for action." The Mothers Committee is reaching out to other neighborhoods in other areas of San Francisco to educate them on what's happening in Bay View Hunters Point. "We're not looking for a handout. This city is just 49 miles square. People have to understand that pollution is a problem for everyone," says Autry, a long-term resident of BVHP. "The soot from PG&E hits us first," she continues, "but the other parts of San Francisco are breathing the same toxic chemicals we are." In a public meeting held at Milton Meyers Auditorium in Hunters Point, Mothers Committee members unveiled a year-long effort entitled "Pollution, Health, Environmental Racism and Injustice: A Toxic Inventory of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco." The 40-page report describes the sources of water and air pollution in BVHP and talks about the worst toxic waste sites in the community and the health problems that the residents are suffering. The Mothers Committee introduced it to the community at their meeting. The full report can be read or downloaded at www.greenaction.org/hunterspoint/documents/TheStateoftheEnvironment090204Fin al.pdf. The Mothers want to continue their work, perhaps expanding it to youth activities that include parents and highlight environmental issues. "It's still hard to figure out where to begin,"says Ester. "We're a needy community but also a community with a lot of heart." As I walked away from the Mothers Committee meeting at Milton Meyers, I had to agree. We do have a lot of heart. It's amazing to see what a few mothers in public housing can do. With the full support of the community, Bay View Hunters Point could again become the safe and healthy community we all hope for. If you are interested in the work of the Mothers Committee, contact me at marie@greenaction.org or Tessie Ester, president of Huntersview Tenants Association, at (415) 821-2873 or see www.greenaction.org for more information. About us Search sfbayview.com Search WWW Advertise in the Bay View! San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 671-0316 Email: editor@sfbayview.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law By TIM GOLDEN WASHINGTON October 24, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/worldspecial2/24gitmo.html?h p&ex=1098590400&en=65eec9e56f90971f&ei=5094&partner=homepage WASHINGTON - In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism. Determined to deal aggressively with the terrorists they expected to capture, the officials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II. The plan was considered so sensitive that senior White House officials kept its final details hidden from the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, officials said. It was so urgent, some of those involved said, that they hardly thought of consulting Congress. White House officials said their use of extraordinary powers would allow the Pentagon to collect crucial intelligence and mete out swift, unmerciful justice. "We think it guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve," said Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a driving force behind the policy. But three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted. Of the roughly 560 men being held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only 4 have been formally charged. Preliminary hearings for those suspects brought such a barrage of procedural challenges and public criticism that verdicts could still be months away. And since a Supreme Court decision in June that gave the detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to send home hundreds of men whom it once branded as dangerous terrorists. "We've cleared whole forests of paper developing procedures for these tribunals, and no one has been tried yet," said Richard L. Shiffrin, who worked on the issue as the Pentagon's deputy general counsel for intelligence matters. "They just ended up in this Kafkaesque sort of purgatory." The story of how Guantánamo and the new military justice system became an intractable legacy of Sept. 11 has been largely hidden from public view. But extensive interviews with current and former officials and a review of confidential documents reveal that the legal strategy took shape as the ambition of a small core of conservative administration officials whose political influence and bureaucratic skill gave them remarkable power in the aftermath of the attacks. The strategy became a source of sharp conflict within the Bush administration, eventually pitting the highest-profile cabinet secretaries - including Ms. Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - against one another over issues of due process, intelligence-gathering and international law. In fact, many officials contend, some of the most serious problems with the military justice system are rooted in the secretive and contentious process from which it emerged. Military lawyers were largely excluded from that process in the days after Sept. 11. They have since waged a long struggle to ensure terrorist prosecutions meet what they say are basic standards of fairness. Uniformed lawyers now assigned to defend Guantánamo detainees have become among the most forceful critics of the Pentagon's own system. Foreign policy officials voiced concerns about the legal and diplomatic ramifications, but had little influence. Increasingly, the administration's plan has come under criticism even from close allies, complicating efforts to transfer scores of Guantánamo prisoners back to their home governments. To the policy's architects, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon represented a stinging challenge to American power and an imperative to consider measures that might have been unimaginable in less threatening times. Yet some officials said the strategy was also shaped by longstanding political agendas that had relatively little to do with fighting terrorism. The administration's claim of authority to set up military commissions, as the tribunals are formally known, was guided by a desire to strengthen executive power, officials said. Its legal approach, including the decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions, reflected the determination of some influential officials to halt what they viewed as the United States' reflexive submission to international law. In designing the new system, many of the officials said they had Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda in mind. But in picking through the hundreds of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, military investigators have struggled to find more than a dozen they can tie directly to significant terrorist acts, officials said. While important Qaeda figures have been captured and held by the C.I.A., administration officials said they were reluctant to bring those prisoners before tribunals they still consider unreliable. Some administration officials involved in the policy declined to be interviewed, or would do so only on the condition they not be named. Others defended it strongly, saying the administration had a responsibility to consider extraordinary measures to protect the country from a terrifying enemy. "Everybody who was involved in this process had, in my mind, a white hat on," Timothy E. Flanigan, the former deputy White House counsel, said in an interview. "They were not out to be cowboys or create a radical new legal regime. What they wanted to do was to use existing legal models to assist in the process of saving lives, to get information. And the war on terror is all about information." As the policy has faltered, other current and former officials have criticized it on pragmatic grounds, arguing that many of the problems could have been avoided. But some of the criticism also has a moral tone. "What several of us were concerned about was due process," said John A. Gordon, a retired Air Force general and former deputy C.I.A. director who served as both the senior counterterrorism official and homeland security adviser on President Bush's National Security Council staff. "There was great concern that we were setting up a process that was contrary to our own ideals." An Aggressive Approach The administration's legal approach to terrorism began to emerge in the first turbulent days after Sept. 11, as the officials in charge of key agencies exhorted their aides to confront Al Qaeda's threat with bold imagination. "Legally, the watchword became 'forward-leaning,' '' said a former associate White House counsel, Bradford Berenson, "by which everybody meant: 'We want to be aggressive. We want to take risks.' '' That challenge resounded among young lawyers who were settling into important posts at the White House, the Justice Department and other agencies. Many of them were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal fraternity. Some had clerked for Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in particular. A striking number had clerked for a prominent Reagan appointee, Lawrence H. Silberman of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. One young lawyer recalled looking around the room during a meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft. "Of 10 people, 7 of us were former Silberman clerks," he said. Mr. Berenson, then 36, had been consumed with the nomination of federal judges until he was suddenly reassigned to terrorism issues and thrown into intense, 15-hour workdays, filled with competing urgencies and intermittent new alerts. "All of a sudden, the curtain was lifted on this incredibly frightening world," he said. "You were spending every day looking at the dossiers of the world's leading terrorists. There was a palpable sense of threat." As generals prepared for war in Afghanistan, lawyers scrambled to understand how the new campaign against terrorism could be waged within the confines of old laws. Mr. Flanigan was at the center of the administration's legal counteroffensive. A personable, soft-spoken father of 14 children, Mr. Flanigan's easy manner sometimes belied the force of his beliefs. He had arrived at the White House after distinguishing himself as an agile legal thinker and a Republican stalwart: During the Clinton scandals, he defended the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr, saying he had conducted his investigation "in a moderate and appropriate fashion." In 2000, he played an important role on the Bush campaign's legal team in the Florida recount. In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Flanigan sought advice from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on "the legality of the use of military force to prevent or deter terrorist activity inside the United States,'' according to a previously undisclosed department memorandum that was reviewed by The New York Times. The 20-page response came from John C. Yoo, a 34-year-old Bush appointee with a glittering résumé and a reputation as perhaps the most intellectually aggressive among a small group of legal scholars who had challenged what they saw as the United States' excessive deference to international law. On Sept. 21, 2001, Mr. Yoo wrote that the question was how the Constitution's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure might apply if the military used "deadly force in a manner that endangered the lives of United States citizens." Mr. Yoo listed an inventory of possible operations: shooting down a civilian airliner hijacked by terrorists; setting up military checkpoints inside an American city; employing surveillance methods more sophisticated than those available to law enforcement; or using military forces "to raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed or injured by exchanges of fire." Mr. Yoo noted that these actions could raise constitutional issues, but said that in the face of devastating terrorist attacks, "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties." If the president decided the threat justified deploying the military inside the country, he wrote, then "we think that the Fourth Amendment should be no more relevant than it would be in cases of invasion or insurrection." The prospect of such military action at home was mostly hypothetical at that point, but with the government taking the fight against terrorism to Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, lawyers in the administration took the same "forward- leaning" approach to making plans for the terrorists they thought would be captured. The idea of using military commissions to try suspected terrorists first came to Mr. Flanigan, he said, in a phone call a couple of days after the attacks from William P. Barr, the former attorney general under whom Mr. Flanigan had served as head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the first Bush administration. Mr. Barr had first suggested the use of military tribunals a decade before, to try suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Although the idea made little headway at the time, Mr. Barr said he reminded Mr. Flanigan that the Legal Counsel's Office had done considerable research on the question. Mr. Flanigan had an aide call for the files. "I thought it was a great idea," he recalled. Military commissions, he thought, would give the government wide latitude to hold, interrogate and prosecute the sort of suspects who might be silenced by lawyers in criminal courts. They would also put the control over prosecutions squarely in the hands of the president. The same ideas were taking hold in the office of Vice President Cheney, championed by his 44-year-old counsel, David S. Addington. At the time, Mr. Addington, a longtime Cheney aide with an indistinct portfolio and no real staff, was not well-known even in the government. But he would become legendary as a voraciously hard-working official with strongly conservative views, an unusually sharp pen and wide influence over military, intelligence and other matters. In a matter of months, he would make a mark as one of the most important architects of the administration's legal strategy against foreign terrorism. Beyond the prosecutorial benefits of military commissions, the two lawyers saw a less tangible, but perhaps equally important advantage. "From a political standpoint," Mr. Flanigan said, "it communicated the message that we were at war, that this was not going to be business as usual." Changing the Rules In fact, very little about how the tribunal policy came about resembled business as usual. For half a century, since the end of World War II, most major national-security initiatives had been forged through interagency debate. But some senior Bush administration officials felt that process placed undue power in the hands of cautious, slow-moving foreign policy bureaucrats. The sense of urgency after Sept. 11 brought that attitude to the surface. Little more than a week after the attacks, officials said, the White House counsel, Alberto F. Gonzales, set up an interagency group to draw up options for prosecuting terrorists. They came together with high expectations. "We were going to go after the people responsible for the attacks, and the operating assumption was that we would capture a significant number of Al Qaeda operatives," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department official assigned to lead the group. "We were thinking hundreds." Mr. Prosper, then 37, had just been sworn in as the department's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. As a prosecutor, he had taken on street gangs and drug Mafias and had won the first genocide conviction before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Even so, some administration lawyers eyed him suspiciously - as more diplomat than crime-fighter. Mr. Gonzales had made it clear that he wanted Mr. Prosper's group to put forward military commissions as a viable option, officials said. The group laid out three others - criminal trials, military courts-martial and tribunals with both civilian and military members, like those used for Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Representatives of the Justice Department's criminal division, which had prosecuted a string of Qaeda defendants in federal district court over the previous decade, argued that the federal courts could do the job again. The option of toughening criminal laws or adapting the courts, as several European countries had done, was discussed, but only briefly, two officials said. "The towers were still smoking, literally," Mr. Prosper said. "I remember asking: Can the federal courts in New York handle this? It wasn't a legal question so much as it was logistical. You had 300 Al Qaeda members, potentially. And did we want to put the judges and juries in harm's way?" Lawyers at the White House saw criminal courts as a minefield, several officials said. Much of the evidence against terror suspects would be classified intelligence that would be difficult to air in court or too sketchy to meet federal standards, the lawyers warned. Another issue was security: Was it safe to try Osama bin Laden in Manhattan, where he was facing federal charges for the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa? Then there was a tactical question. To act pre-emptively against Al Qaeda, the authorities would need information that defense lawyers and due-process rules might discourage suspects from giving up. Mr. Flanigan framed the choice starkly: "are we going to go with a system that is really guaranteed to prevent us from getting information in every case or are we going to go another route?" Military commissions had no statutory rules of their own. In past American wars, when such tribunals had been used to carry out battlefield justice against spies, saboteurs and others accused of violating the laws of war, they had generally hewed to prevailing standards of military justice. But the advocates for commissions in the Bush administration saw no reason they could not adapt the rules, officials said. Standards of proof could be lowered. Secrecy provisions could be expanded. The death penalty could be more liberally applied. But some members of the interagency group saw it as more complicated. Terrorism had not been clearly established as a war crime under international law. Writing new law for a military tribunal might end up being more difficult than prosecuting terrorism cases in existing courts. By late October 2001, the White House lawyers had grown impatient with what they saw as the dithering of Mr. Prosper's group and what one former official called the "cold feet" of some of its members. Mr. Flanigan said he thought the government needed to move urgently in case a major terrorist linked to the attacks was apprehended. He gathered up the research that the Prosper group had completed on military commissions and took charge of the matter himself. Suddenly, the other options were off the table and the Prosper group was out of business. "Prosper is a thoughtful, gentle, process-oriented guy," the former official said. "At that time, gentle was not an adjective that anybody wanted." A Secretive Circle With the White House in charge, officials said, the planning for tribunals moved forward more quickly, and more secretly. Whole agencies were left out of the discussion. So were most of the government's experts in military and international law. The legal basis for the administration's approach was laid out on Nov. 6 in a confidential 35-page memorandum sent to Mr. Gonzales from Patrick F. Philbin, a deputy in the Legal Counsel's office. (Attorney General Ashcroft has refused recent Congressional requests for the document, but a copy was reviewed by The Times.) The memorandum's plain legalese belied its bold assertions. It said that the president, as commander-in-chief, has "inherent authority'' to establish military commissions without Congressional authorization. It concluded that the Sept. 11 attacks were "plainly sufficient" to warrant applying the laws of war. Opening a debate that would later divide the administration, the memorandum also suggested that the White House could apply international law selectively. It stated specifically that trying terrorists under the laws of war "does not mean that terrorists will receive the protections of the Geneva Conventions or the rights that laws of war accord to lawful combatants." The central legal precedent cited in the memorandum was a 1942 case in which the Supreme Court upheld President Franklin D. Roosevelt's use of a military commission to try eight Nazi saboteurs who had sneaked into the United States aboard submarines. Since that ruling, revolutions had taken place in both international and military law, with the adoption of the Geneva Conventions in 1949 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1951. Even so, the Justice memorandum said the 1942 ruling had "set a clear constitutional analysis" under which due process rights do not apply to military commissions. Roosevelt, too, created his military commission without new and explicit Congressional approval, and authorized the military to fashion its own procedural rules. He also established himself, rather than a military judge, as the "final reviewing authority'' for the case. Mr. Addington seized on the Roosevelt precedent as a model, two people involved in the process said, despite vast differences. Roosevelt acted against enemy agents in a traditional war among nations. Mr. Bush would be asserting the same power to take on a shadowy network of adversaries with no geographic boundaries, in a conflict with no foreseeable end. Mr. Addington, who drafted the order with Mr. Flanigan, was particularly influential, several officials said, because he represented Mr. Cheney and brought formidable experience in national-security law to a small circle of senior officials. Mr. Addington turned down several requests for interviews and a spokesman for the vice president's office declined to comment. "He was probably the only one there who would know what an order would look like, what it would say," a former Justice Department official said, noting Mr. Addington's work at the Defense Department, the C.I.A., and Congressional intelligence committees. "He didn't have authority over anyone. But he's a persuasive guy." To many officials outside the circle, the secrecy was remarkable. While Mr. Ashcroft and his deputy, Larry D. Thompson, were closely consulted, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Michael Chertoff, who had argued for trying terror suspects in federal court, saw the military order only when it was published, officials said. Mr. Rumsfeld was kept informed of the plan mainly through his general counsel, William J. Haynes II, several Pentagon officials said. Many of the Pentagon's experts on military justice, uniformed lawyers who had spent their careers working on such issues, were mostly kept in the dark. "I can't tell you how compartmented things were," said retired Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter, who was then the Navy's senior military lawyer, or judge advocate general. "This was a closed administration." A group of experienced Army lawyers had been meeting with Mr. Haynes repeatedly on the process, but began to suspect that what they said did not resonate outside the Pentagon, several of them said. On Friday, Nov. 9, Defense Department officials said, Mr. Haynes called the head of the team, Col. Lawrence J. Morris, into his office to review a draft of the presidential order. He was given 30 minutes to study it but was not allowed to keep a copy or even take notes. The following day, the Army's judge advocate general, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, hurriedly convened a meeting of senior military lawyers to discuss a response. The group worked through the Veterans Day weekend to prepare suggestions that would have moved the tribunals closer to existing military justice. But when the final document was issued that Tuesday, it reflected none of the officers' ideas, several military officials said. "They hadn't changed a thing," one official said. In fact, while the military lawyers were pulling together their response, they were unaware that senior administration officials were already at the White House putting finishing touches on the plan. At a meeting that Saturday in the Roosevelt Room, Mr. Cheney led a discussion among Attorney General Ashcroft, Mr. Haynes of the Defense Department, the White House lawyers and a few other aides. Senior officials of the State Department and the National Security Council staff were excluded from final discussions of the policy, even at a time when they were meeting daily about Afghanistan with the officials who were drafting the order. According to two people involved in the process, Mr. Cheney advocated withholding the draft from Ms. Rice and Secretary Powell. When the two cabinet members found out about the military order - upon its public release - Ms. Rice was particularly angry, several senior officials said. Spokesmen for both officials declined to comment. Mr. Bush played only a modest role in the debate, senior administration officials said. In an initial discussion, he agreed that military commissions should be an option, the officials said. Later, Mr. Cheney discussed a draft of the order with Mr. Bush over lunch, one former official said. The president signed the three-page order on Nov. 13. No ceremony accompanied the signing, and the order was released to the public that day without so much as a press briefing. But its historic significance was unmistakable. The military could detain and prosecute any foreigner whom the president or his representative determined to have "engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit" terrorism. Echoing the Roosevelt order, the Bush document promised "free and fair" tribunals but offered few guarantees: There was no promise of public trials, no right to remain silent, no presumption of innocence. As in 1942, guilt did not necessarily have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and a death sentence could be imposed even with a divided verdict. Despite those similarities, some military and international lawyers were struck by the differences. "The Roosevelt order referred specifically to eight people, the eight Nazi saboteurs," said Mr. Shiffrin, who was then the Defense Department's deputy general counsel for intelligence matters and had studied the Nazi saboteurs' case. "Here we were putting in place a parallel system of justice for a universe of people who we had no idea about - who they would be, how many of them there would be. It was a very dramatic measure." Mounting Criticism The White House did its best to play down the drama, but criticism of the order was immediate and widespread. Civil libertarians and some Congressional leaders saw an attempt to supplant the criminal justice system. Critics also worried about the concentration of power: The president or his proxies would define the crimes (often after an act had been committed); set the rules for trial; and choose the judges, juries and appellate panels. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who was then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was among a handful of legislators who argued that the administration's plan required explicit Congressional authorization. The Congress had just passed the Patriot Act by a huge margin, and Mr. Leahy proposed authorizing military commissions, but with some important changes, including a presumption of innocence for defendants and appellate review by the Supreme Court. Critics seized on complaints from abroad, including an announcement from the Spanish authorities that they would not extradite some terrorist suspects to the United States if they would face the tribunals. "We are the most powerful nation on earth," Mr. Leahy said. "But in the struggle against terrorism, we don't have the option of going it alone. Would these military tribunals be worth jeopardizing the cooperation we expect and need from our allies?" Senators called for Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Ashcroft to testify about the tribunals plan. Instead, the administration sent Mr. Prosper from the State Department and Mr. Chertoff of the Justice Department - both of whom had questioned the use of commissions and were later excluded from the administration's final deliberations. But the Congressional opposition melted in the face of opinion polls showing strong support for the president's measures against terrorism. There was another reason fears were allayed. With the order signed, the Pentagon was writing rules for exactly how the commissions would be conducted, and an early draft that was leaked to the news media suggested defendants' rights would be expanded. Mr. Rumsfeld, who assembled a group of outside legal experts - including some who had worked on World War II- era tribunals - to consult on the rules, said critics' concerns would be taken into account. But all of the critics were not outside the administration. Many of the Pentagon's uniformed lawyers were angered by the implication that the military would be used to deliver "rough justice" for the terrorists. The Uniform Code of Military Justice had moved steadily into line with the due-process standards of the federal courts, and senior military lawyers were proud and protective of their system. They generally supported using commissions for terrorists, but argued that the system would not be fair without greater rights for defendants. "The military lawyers would from time to time remind the civilians that there was a Constitution that we had to pay attention to," said Admiral Guter, who, after retiring as the Navy judge advocate general, signed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of plaintiffs in the Guantánamo Supreme Court case. Even as uniformed lawyers were given a greater role in writing rules for the commissions, they still felt out of the loop. In early 2002, Admiral Guter said, during a weekly lunch with Mr. Haynes and the top lawyers for the military branches, he raised the issue with Mr. Haynes directly: "we need more information." Mr. Haynes looked at him coldly. "No, you don't," he quoted Mr. Haynes as saying. Mr. Haynes declined to comment on the exchange. Lt. Col. William K. Lietzau, a Yale-trained Marine lawyer on Mr. Haynes's staff, often found himself in the middle. "I could see how the JAGs were frustrated that the task of setting up the commissions hadn't been delegated to them,'' he said, referring to the senior military lawyers. "On the other hand, I could see how some of their recommendations frustrated the leadership because they didn't always appear to embrace the paradigm shift needed to deal with terrorism." Some Justice Department officials also urged changes in the commission rules, current and former officials said. While Attorney General Ashcroft staunchly defended the policy in public, in a private meeting with Pentagon officials, he said some of the proposed commission rules would be seen as "draconian," two officials said. On nearly every issue, interviews and documents show, the harder line was staked out by White House lawyers: Mr. Addington, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Flanigan. They opposed allowing civilian lawyers to assist the tribunal defendants, as military courts- martial permit, or allowing civilians to serve on the appellate panel that would oversee the commissions. They also opposed granting defendants a presumption of innocence. In the end, Mr. Rumsfeld compromised. He granted defendants a presumption of innocence and set "beyond a reasonable doubt" as a standard for proving guilt. He also allowed the defendants to hire civilian lawyers, but restricted the lawyers' access to case information. And he gave the presiding officer at a tribunal license to admit any evidence he thought might be convincing to a "reasonable person.'' One right the administration sought to deny the prisoners was the ability to appeal the legality of their detentions in federal court. The administration had done its best to decide the question when searching for a place to detain hundreds of prisoners captured in Afghanistan. Every location it seriously considered - including an American military base in Germany and islands in the South Pacific - was outside the United States and, the administration believed, beyond the reach of the federal judiciary. On Dec. 28, 2001, after officials settled on Guantánamo Bay, Mr. Philbin and Mr. Yoo told the Pentagon in a memorandum that it could make a "very strong" claim that prisoners there would be outside the purview of American courts. But the memorandum cautioned that a reasonable argument could also be made that Guantánamo "while not part of the sovereign territory of the United States, is within the territorial jurisdiction of a federal court." That warning would come back to haunt the administration. A Shift in Power Some of the officials who helped design the new system of justice would later explain the influence they exercised in the chaotic days after Sept. 11 as a response to a crisis. But a more enduring shift of power within the administration was taking place - one that became apparent in a decision that would have significant consequences for how terror suspects were interrogated and detained. At issue was whether the administration would apply the Geneva Conventions to the conflicts with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and whether those enemies would be treated as prisoners of war. Based on the advice of White House and Justice Department lawyers, Mr. Bush initially decided on Jan. 18, 2002, that the conventions would not apply to either conflict. But at a meeting of senior national security officials several days later, Secretary of State Powell asked him to reconsider. Mr. Powell agreed that the conventions did not apply to the global fight against Al Qaeda. But he said troops could be put at risk if the United States disavowed the conventions in dealing with the Taliban - the de facto government of Afghanistan. Both Mr. Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, supported his position, Pentagon officials said. In a debate that included the administration's most experienced national-security officials, the voice that was heard belonged to Mr. Yoo, who was only a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel. He cast Afghanistan as a "failed state," and said its fighters should not be considered a real army but a "militant, terrorist-like group." In a Jan. 25 memorandum to the president, the White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales, characterized that opinion as "definitive." The Gonzales memorandum suggested that the "new kind of war" Mr. Bush wanted to fight could hardly be reconciled with the "quaint" privileges that the Geneva Conventions gave to prisoners of war, or the "strict limitations" they imposed on interrogations. Military lawyers disputed the idea that applying the conventions would necessarily limit interrogators to the name, rank and serial number of their captives. "There were very good reasons not to designate the detainees as prisoners of war, but the claim that they couldn't be interrogated was not one of them," Colonel Lietzau said. Again, though, such questions were scarcely heard, officials involved in the discussions said. Mr. Yoo's rise reflected a different approach by the Bush administration to sensitive legal questions concerning foreign affairs, defense and intelligence. In past administrations, officials said, the Office of Legal Counsel usually weighed in with opinions on questions that had already been deliberated by the legal staffs of the agencies involved. Under Mr. Bush, the office frequently had a first and final say on such questions. "O.L.C. was definitely running the show legally, and John Yoo in particular," a former Pentagon lawyer said. "He's kind of fun to be around, and he has an opinion on everything. Even though he was quite young, he exercised disproportionate authority because of his personality and his strong opinions." Mr. Yoo's influence was amplified by friendships he developed not just with Mr. Addington and Mr. Flanigan, but also Mr. Haynes, with whom he played squash as often as three or four times a week at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club. If the Geneva Conventions debate raised Mr. Yoo's stature, it had the opposite effect on lawyers at the State Department, who were later excluded from sensitive discussions on matters like the interrogation of detainees, officials from several agencies said. "State was cut out of a lot of this activity from February of 2002 on," one senior administration official said. "These were treaties that we were dealing with; they are meant to know about that." The State Department legal adviser, William H. Taft IV, was shunned by the lawyers who dominated the detainee policy, officials said. Although Mr. Taft had served as the deputy secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, more conservative colleagues whispered that he lacked the constitution to fight terrorists. "He was seen as ideologically squishy and suspect," a former White House official said. "People did not take him very seriously." Through a State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, Mr. Taft declined to comment. The rivalries could be almost adolescent. When field trips to Guantánamo Bay were arranged for administration lawyers, the invitations were sometimes relayed last to the State Department and National Security Council, officials said, in the hope that lawyers there would not be able to come on short notice. It was on the first field trip, 10 days after detainees began to arrive there on Jan. 11, 2002, that White House lawyers made clear their intention to move forward quickly with military commissions. On the flight home, several officials said, Mr. Addington urged Mr. Gonzales to seek a blanket designation of all the detainees being sent to Guantánamo as eligible for trial under the president's order. Mr. Gonzales agreed. The next day, the Pentagon instructed military intelligence officers at the base to start filling out one-page forms for each detainee, describing their alleged offenses. Weeks later, Mr. Haynes issued an urgent call to the military services, asking them to submit nominations for a chief prosecutor. The first trials, many military and administration officials believed, were just around the corner.Next: A Policy Unravels Jack Begg contributed research for this article. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Rebel Attacks Kill 12 Iraqis; G.I.'s Injured By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. BAGHDAD, Iraq October 24, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/middleeast/24iraq.html?hp&ex =1098590400&en=34534b10fa606fde&ei=5094&partner=homepage BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 23 - Insurgents launched strikes on Saturday at United States and Iraqi outposts across Iraq, killing at least a dozen Iraqi police officers and national guardsmen in car bombings and wounding dozens of Iraqis and Americans in the assaults, which included mortars and hidden roadside bombs. No American soldiers were killed but six were wounded when their Bradley fighting vehicle was attacked on the dangerous road that leads to the Baghdad airport. The deadliest attack occurred outside the gates of a Marine base in Baghdadi, in the restive Anbar Province of western Iraq, a Sunni area where a car bomber killed at least 10 Iraqi policemen and wounded 5 others, according to the Marines. The police were gathered at a checkpoint on the perimeter of the base, which is home to a Marine aircraft wing near the Euphrates River about 110 miles west of Baghdad. Mujtaba Ahmed al-Hiti, the police chief in Hit, a nearby town, told Agence France-Presse that a total of 40 people had been wounded, and he said the attacker had been trying to drive into an academy where police were training. In Falluja, the insurgent-controlled stronghold west of Baghdad where a major offensive is being planned to take back the city, United States officials say an early morning raid led to the capture of a lieutenant to the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mr. Zarqawi is the Jordanian militant said to have sworn allegiance to Al l Qaeda and taken responsibility for scores of car bombings, beheadings and other acts of terror. American officials said the "individual targeted and captured today was recently assessed to be a relatively minor member of the Zarqawi network." But with more important Zarqawi aides having been detained or killed in recent weeks, the aide captured at a safe house south of Falluja at 1:30 a.m. "had moved up to take a critical position as a Zarqawi senior leader." Five other terrorists were captured, the military said. Members of Mr. Zarqawi's network are increasingly moving to the outskirts of the city to evade American attacks on safe houses and other hideouts and are trying to blend in with civilians, military officials say. United States forces, they say, have eliminated meeting sites and safe houses for the network and destroyed car bombs and other weapons. Military officials say Iraqi civilians in Falluja have been providing information about the whereabouts of Zarqawi associates. The Marines have stepped up operations on the outskirts of Falluja during the last two weeks, trying to flush out insurgents and members of Mr. Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad terror organization in anticipation of what Iraqi leaders have said will be a major offensive. The Marines have also conducted nightly bombing raids for the last two months aimed at the Zarqawi network. Since this summer, Falluja has been controlled by insurgents and a Taliban-style Islamist local government that United States and Iraqi officials say has given refuge to Mr. Zarqawi and members of his network. The flurry of violence on Saturday underscores the challenge facing American and Iraqi officials as national elections draw near. Violence and attacks have been rising, and American deaths continue to mount, though by most accounts there are fewer attacks taking place than during the recent peak in August. In one of the most dangerous areas, the sprawling Sadr City slum, a Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, the security situation has been surprisingly calm of late, according to some American officers. But in other places, especially Anbar Province, car bombings and other attacks have continued at a steady pace. In a statement on Saturday afternoon following the attack in Baghdadi, the Marines said: "Insurgents have increased attacks on Iraqi Security Forces seeking to secure a free Iraq." Near Samarra, an insurgent flashpoint north of Baghdad that United States forces retook early this month after a grisly three-day battle, several Iraqi national guardsmen were killed Saturday morning by a car bomb at a checkpoint south of town. Reports quoting Iraqi officials said at least four guardsmen died in the attack, but American forces that control the area say there were two fatalities. Lt. Wayne Adkins, a spokesman for the Army's First Infantry Division, said the attack occurred at 10:40 a.m. "Two Iraqi National Guard soldiers were killed and one was injured when Anti-Iraqi Forces detonated" a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device at an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint, he said. One Iraqi guardsman died at the scene and a second died later from his wounds, Lieutenant Adkins said. Insurgents also struck in central Baghdad, lobbing mortars during lunchtime near the American-controlled green zone, where the American Embassy and the Iraqi government have headquarters. There were no reports of deaths or injuries from the mortars, which could be easily heard throughout central Baghdad. A rocket also struck the building that houses an Iraqi legal association. And six soldiers were wounded at 7:15 a.m. when their Bradley was struck by an improvised explosive device on the road that leads to the Baghdad airport. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) CORRUPTION ACCUSATIONS Memos Warned of Billing Fraud by Firm in Iraq By ERIK ECKHOLM October 23, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/23whistle.html Managers of a security firm that won large contracts in Iraq warned their bosses in February of what they called a pattern of fraudulent billing practices, internal company memorandums suggest. The memorandums, written primarily by two company managers, charged that the security firm, Custer Battles, repeatedly billed the occupation authorities for nonexistent services or at grossly inflated prices. The company, which quickly grew to garner security contracts worth $100 million in little more than a year, denies the charges. It argues that the managers confused sincere attempts to document jobs done in a hurry, in a war zone, with deliberate deception and that the company provided all contracted services for the agreed-upon price. The memos and a lawsuit filed by former employees cite several specific instances, including billing the Coalition Provisional Authority $157,000 for a helicopter pad that in fact cost $95,000, and repainting forklifts abandoned by Baghdad Airways and then charging the authority thousands of dollars a month, claiming that the forklifts were leased. One of the managers was later fired by the company and is part of a lawsuit charging Custer Battles with defrauding the federal government of tens of millions of dollars. The other manager, who has since been appointed to a high-level position with the company, recently declared that after further research, he believed that any questionable practices were the fault of a few individuals and had not been condoned by the owners. On Sept. 30, the Pentagon, concerned by the allegations raised by the employees, barred Custer Battles from receiving further military contracts, and it has withheld at least $10 million in payments to the company. The company is appealing the ban. The charges swirling around Custer Battles in part reflect a problem that American government auditors have acknowledged: the inability of the Iraq occupation authority, particularly in its first year, to monitor properly the performance of hundreds of companies, large and small, that flocked to Baghdad seeking contracts for everything from building materials to armed guards. The memorandums, provided by a lawyer for the managers who filed the lawsuit against Custer Battles, charge that the company submitted invoices from supposed subcontractors or suppliers that - unbeknownst to the American officials who paid the final tab - were virtual shells, newly created by Custer Battles executives and their partners. Custer Battles, founded in 2001 by Scott Custer and Michael Battles, both in their 30's, says it has about 700 employees. Pete Baldwin, then the Iraq facilities manager, wrote in a Feb. 2 memorandum that in one typical invoice, Custer Battles claimed that one of its shell companies had installed a helicopter pad for $157,000. In fact, Custer Battles had hired a different company to build the pad for $95,000, he asserted. He wrote that "every line item on that invoice," which was submitted for a total of $250,000, was just as "false, fabricated, inflated." Mr. Baldwin wrote that he had repeatedly informed Mr. Custer, the company co-owner, of similar practices, but to no avail. A lawyer for Custer Battles, Richard Sauber, said that Mr. Custer had subsequently brought accountants to Iraq to clear up incomplete books but that they had not found fraud. Mr. Baldwin said in the memorandum that after he began raising alarms, an executive with the company tried to fire him. Mr. Baldwin was given notice on Feb. 20 - he has said because of his charges of fraud. Larry Robbins, a lawyer for Custer Battles, says he was fired for "incompetence.'' Last week, documents unsealed by the Justice Department disclosed that two former managers of Custer Battles, including Mr. Baldwin, had brought a civil suit under the federal whistle-blower act charging the company with fraud. The company called those charges baseless and the work of "a competitor and a disgruntled employee." The two former managers could win million of dollars in rewards if the charges hold up. In a memorandum dated Feb. 28, 2004, Peter Miskovich, who was manager of the company's $21 million contract to safeguard Iraq's new currency as it was being distributed, gave a scathing review of the project, which he took over in midstream. Mr. Miskovich - who is not part of the whistle-blower lawsuit - wrote to his superior, Charles Baumann, then the country manager, that the records provided "prima facie evidence of a course of conduct consistent with criminal activity and intent." Mr. Miskovich was later named director of the company's new Office of Corporate Integrity. In an Oct. 13 affidavit, he said that after further review, he had concluded that financial improprieties were more isolated than he had declared in February. He said that "I do not believe, based on what I learned during my tenure" as a project manager, "that Scott Custer or Mike Battles was involved in the questionable conduct." Reached by telephone this week, Mr. Miskovich refused to speak to a reporter. Mr. Baldwin could not be reached for comment. The Air Force, which suspended the Custer Battles contract, wrote a memorandum citing suspicion of repeated fraud. The Air Force quotes Mr. Miskovich's Feb. 28 memorandum, and calls the evidence of company misconduct "of so serious or compelling a nature that it affects their present responsibility to be government contractors or subcontractors." In the case of the currency exchange project, said Mr. Sauber, the lawyer for Custer Battles, the occupation authority agreed on a final fee of $21 million, but the Pentagon has held up the final $10 million in payments while it investigates the contract. Earlier this month, the Justice Department declined to prosecute Custer Battles, though the civil suit continues under the whistle- blower law. The department gave no public explanation, but officials had previously told lawyers in the lawsuit that because the alleged fraud was against the Coalition Provisional Authority, federal prosecutors did not have jurisdiction. Some experts have questioned that reasoning. The company founders, Scott Custer and Michael Battles, are both Army veterans. Mr. Battles unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Rhode Island as a Republican two years ago. The two started out by offering security services to nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. But their business really took hold in June 2003, soon after the fall of Baghdad. The men obtained a $16.5 million contract from the occupation authorities to provide security for the Baghdad airport. That one-year contract was not renewed, but the company had already begun pulling in others, directly with the Coalition Provisional Authority or as a subcontractor to other companies. As it cut a quick and profitable swath, Custer Battles sometimes angered more experienced security companies with its aggressive recruitment of scarce security experts and claims to industry leadership. The company describes itself as "the premier security company in Iraq" on its corporate Web site. The two founders have received praise for their entrepreneurship. The internal memorandums charge that part of that success, at least, was built on questionable practices. One example captures some of the fog of post-invasion Iraq. With forged invoices, Mr. Miskovich wrote, Custer Battles billed for providing a security detail for the road delivery from Baghdad to Mosul of prefabricated cabins. The housing was urgently required by teams carrying out the currency exchange. Not only did the company provide no guards for the trip, Mr. Miskovich said in his Feb. 28 memo, but the convoy was also somehow lost for a week, officials in Mosul had to sleep in tents, and the company had to offer a reward to locate the cabins. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Wife of Soldier Sentenced in Prison Abuse Scandal Speaks Out By Brian Witte The Associated Press Baltimore Friday 22 October 2004 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102304V.shtml Baltimore - The wife of an Army reservist sentenced to prison for abusing prisoners in Iraq said she knows her husband was wrong, but she also blames higher-ranking officials who "sit behind the curtains" for the abuse. Martha Frederick, wife of Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, said the eight-year sentence he received Thursday for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal will force her family to "endure hardships and many sacrifices." "The pain sets deeper yet in knowing that he serves these years not only for his actions or actions of a few reservists, but those included in the chain of command," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. Her 38-year-old husband, of Buckingham, Va., received the stiffest punishment given so far in the scandal. But she questioned why her husband's superiors weren't being punished for what she said was their complicity on the abuse. "I feel outrage that he and a few others will bear the weight for the actions of many," she wrote. Since finding out her husband faced charges, Frederick wrote that her family has felt as if they were "facing a life-threatening situation when you relive your life's most memorable moments as well as contemplating all the things that you wish you could change or have done differently." Martha Frederick said she will always see her husband as a "good soldier." "I will see my husband as a far greater man than those who have abandoned him, left him to be convicted for his acts and the failures of their own," she wrote. Throughout the e-mail, she claims "misguided" leadership led to the abuse of Iraqi detainees. She wrote that the photographs and videos showing abuse "do not represent the people of this country, nor do they represent Chip as a person." "I do not see Chip as a good soldier gone bad but as a good soldier thrust into a no-win situation," she wrote. She writes of the pain and isolation her family has felt, especially her husband, who was sentenced in Iraq, far from his family. "It is not just how my husband will endure incarceration but how he will endure being left behind, used and discarded," she wrote. Frederick joined the Army National Guard at 17, after convincing his mother to sign the papers authorizing his enlistment. Seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, Md., have been charged in the scandal. Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., is already serving a one-year sentence after pleading guilty in May to three counts. (c) Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Stand in Solidarity with the People of Haiti The crisis situation in Haiti continues to deepen. The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition - along with the Haiti Support Network and progressives in the Haitian community - initiated the Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People. Many people are joining as volunteers to help support an effective political response in Haiti and here in the United States in solidarity with those resisting a wave of repression. We are also sending humanitarian assistance in the form of much-needed medicines. In the past two weeks, the de facto Haitian government has demonstrated its complete bankruptcy by doing nothing for the flood victims and instead launching a brutal crackdown on people in the neighborhoods of Belair and Cité Soleil. On October 13, Haitian police, backed by UN occupation troops, beat and arrested well-known activist priest Gérard Jean-Juste as he was distributing food to hungry children. He is accused of being "a threat to public order." The de facto prime minister called the warrantless arrest "pre-emptive." Meanwhile, the police and occupation troops have arrested and killed dozens of other anti-coup activists. The former soldiers of the banned Haitian Army now openly patrol the streets and have openly announced their plan to "wipe out" resistance to the coup and occupation. These developments make the indoor rally planned for Dec. 5 in Brooklyn at New York Technical College all the more important. Speakers from the Lavalas Family Party and the National Popular Party will outline their respective visions of how the Haitian people's struggle can advance. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others will also take part. Thanks to your responses, we have been able to begin sending medicine to help stave off and treat the diseases stemming from waters polluted by sewage and cadavers. But more help is needed given the dramatic medical and political situations in Haiti. The Haitian people need our further support. At this time of great crisis, generated by the U.S. government and its financial and political dictates, the independent response of the people in the U.S. to help stop the suffering of the Haitian people is urgently needed. Stand with the Haitian people in their fight for democracy and self-determination, and in their hour of medical and humanitarian need. You can make an urgently needed contribution immediately to the Emergency Campaign to Support the Haitian People by clicking here to donate by credit card online through our secure server. Credit card donations are not tax deductible. If you want to make a tax deductible donation to the Emergency Campaign, you can do so by writing a check made out to the Progress Unity Fund/Haiti and send it to Progress Unity Fund, 167 Anderson St., San Francisco, CA 94110. A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Act Now to Stop War & End Racism http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org info@internationalanswer.org National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389 New York City: 212-533-0417 Los Angeles: 323-464-1636 San Francisco: 415-821-6545 For media inquiries, call 202-544-3389. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Safeguarding Colombia's Oil By JUAN FORERO PUERTO VEGA, Colombia October 22, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22colombia.html?ore f=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position PUERTO VEGA, Colombia - In the biggest, most ambitious army offensive in Colombia's 40-year rebel war, 18,000 counterinsurgency troops have since January fanned out across four isolated southern states, a lawless swath that for years functioned as a de facto republic for Marxist rebels. Aided by American helicopters, planning and surveillance, Colombian forces have the stated goal of penetrating the historic heart of Colombia's largest rebel group to "strike a decisive blow to narco- terrorists," as Gen. James Hill, the commander of United States forces in Latin America, put it earlier this year. But the Washington-backed offensive has another motive, oil and military authorities say, one that Colombian and American officials only gingerly discuss: to make potentially oil-rich regions safe for exploration by private companies and the government-run oil company. With Colombian oil production falling and the Bush administration eagerly seeking to diversify American oil imports, Colombia's government has made securing potentially lucrative oil basins and other energy infrastructure a cornerstone of its efforts to pacify this vast country. "For the military, the priority is to protect and provide confidence for investors, in particular in the petroleum sector," said Mauricio Salgar, operations director for Ecopetrol, the state oil firm. "For the investor, it's important that he know that in Colombia he has an ally." The policy's twin emphasis of protecting oil production and challenging Colombia's most formidable rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is most apparent here in Putumayo province, where coca once grew like weeds and rebels freely controlled roads and towns. One of the newcomers is Petrotesting Colombia, a small, spirited homegrown company that has made the production of crude in dangerous corners of Colombia something of a specialty. But it does not operate here alone. Four hundred troops patrol a narrow dirt road used by tankers to transport crude. At one Petrotesting well, soldiers with Galil assault rifles stand guard from a heavily fortified base circled by a dozen sandbag bunkers. "We went in with the support of the armed forces," Frank C. Kanayet, the company's president, said in an interview in at the company's new offices in Bogotá. "Without government support, we would not have been able to come in." Much of the coca, used to produce cocaine, has been destroyed here in an American-funded eradication drive. The soldiers who now stand guard in the wilting heat say they have been told their job is vital - ensuring that the oil and government revenues flow. Lately, they have been in an upbeat mood. "All of this belonged to the guerrillas," said Lt. Luis Villalba, the young commander of a group of soldiers standing sentry. "Now it belongs to the army." Such boasts may be premature. Across four provinces, the guerrillas have melted into the jungle, avoiding direct confrontations. But they have left behind snipers and land mines that have bogged down army forces, killed about 50 soldiers and wounded hundreds. Here in the cattle pastures and jungles south of the Putumayo River, the rebels also recently burned nine tankers carrying Petrotesting's oil and killed one driver. "They've told us, 'This is our crude, and you are only helping the multinationals,' " said José Ney, 44, whose tanker was set on fire by rebels in September. "If they stop me again, they'll kill me." Still, for the first time in years, soldiers and police have arrived in isolated pockets of this province, as well as forgotten regions of three others, Caquetá, Meta and Guaviare. And while bombings against infrastructure like oil pipelines and wells continue in Putumayo, the attacks have fallen from 149 in 2003 to 58 this year through mid-October. The military and oil company representatives credit two battalions created just to guard oil infrastructure. They and other units protect such companies as Argosy Energy International of Houston, which has 15 wells in Putumayo, and Petrobank Energy and Resources, a Canadian oil producer that has banked much of its future in Colombia on tapping into an oil deposit in the Orito region that may contain a billion barrels. "There's a feeling of safety, that we're keeping the peace," said Major Pedro Sánchez, an 18-year counterinsurgency specialist who is the second in command of the battalion that protects oil installations in Orito. "We've provided confidence so companies can explore here." Employing Colombia's 200,000-member army to further oil interests is seen as critical to President Ãlvaro Uribe's ambitious plans to boost oil production. Oil is Colombia's No. 1 export, providing nearly a third of the state's revenues. Latin America's third-largest exporter of oil, Colombia has long been among the top 10 suppliers of crude to the United States. But a worsening conflict, coupled with contract terms that prospective investors found unpalatable, prompted oil companies to abandon the country and caused exploration to stagnate. From production of 830,000 barrels a day in 1999, Colombia now pumps 535,000 daily. With many of the country's major fields fast declining, like Occidental Petroleum's Caño Limón and BP's Cusiana and Cupiagua, energy planners here say Colombia will become a net importer by 2009 unless new discoveries are made. That means luring oil companies, large and small, even to regions like Putumayo, where energy planners say production of just 10,000 barrels a day could easily quadruple with more exploration. "Whatever barrel of oil that's out there, we're going to go after aggressively," said Mr. Salgar, the Ecopetrol director of operations. "Some of these fields are very small, but we think they are all important. One barrel of oil is better than no barrels." Though unproven, Colombian energy officials believe the country may contain 47 billion barrels of oil, an estimate based on Colombia's proximity to its oil-rich neighbor, Venezuela, with which it shares much of the same oil-producing geology. Colombia, however, is vastly underexplored, with exploration and production going on in only 7 of the nation's 18 sedimentary basins, Ecopetrol officials said. To spur exploration, the state in 2001 reduced Ecopetrol's mandatory share in joint ventures from 50 percent to 30 percent. Then, in 2002, the government replaced its flat 20 percent royalty with a sliding scale that enhances the financial viability of small projects. In April, the state went further, eliminating Ecopetrol's required participation in projects. Taxes were also reduced, the lifespan of contracts extended and the awarding of concessions made more flexible. Ecopetrol itself was split into two units, one devoted to developing business. The scope of the changes prompted the regional president of one major oil company, who asked that his name not be used, to remark: "The government is literally desperate." Armando Zamora, director of the National Hydrocarbon Agency, which administers concessions, agreed. "We were anguished and that's what permitted us to undertake these reforms." The measures have attracted attention and business. The biggest catch this year has been Exxon Mobil , which along with Petrobras, a long-time oil producer here, took advantage of beneficial terms to undertake an ambitious offshore exploration project. Other big companies like ChevronTexaco and Occidental Petroleum have extended natural gas and oil contracts. The Harken Energy Corporation , Repsol-YPF of Spain, Hocol and several smaller companies have in recent months signed either exploration contracts or viability agreements that will likely lead to exploration. In all, 20 exploration contracts have been signed this year, continuing a trend from 2003, when 21 companies signed contracts. In 2002, when the conflict was raging and before new terms were introduced, 14 contracts were signed. But the state realized that it needed to address security if it wanted oil companies to explore in regions like the foothills of the Andes in Meta and Casanare provinces or in the war-torn Catatumbo region in northeastern Colombia. These areas may have oil, but they are lawless and violent. Upon taking office in August of 2002, Mr. Uribe's government stepped up its protection of power lines and reduced the theft of gasoline by right-wing paramilitary groups that had a long- standing practice of tapping into government-owned pipelines. The government also established a new office in the presidency, the Presidential Councilor for Infrastructure Protection, which meets frequently with military officials, Ecopetrol and oil officials to discuss security measures. The Bush administration, meanwhile, reversed American policy and dispatched Special Forces trainers from Fort Bragg, N.C., to train Colombian soldiers to protect a 500-mile pipeline used by Occidental Petroleum, which is based in Los Angeles, to pump crude from its northeastern oil fields. State oil officials say the idea now is to simply get prospective companies to travel to Colombia to discuss the safety issues. "Those companies that are afraid, we tell them, 'First send your security people,' " said Mr. Zamora of the National Hydrocarbons Agency. "They come down, and we take them to the Defense Ministry, the Mines and Energy Ministry, to other companies, so they can see for themselves." Such measures have raised concerns among some policy analysts who question using public funds, both American and Colombian, to benefit mostly private companies. Many of the companies are American and, like Occidental, have long lobbied Washington to back Colombia's government more strongly. American military planners have also played an important role in devising military efforts to both protect infrastructure and hit the guerrillas. "Even if the Uribe government has launched offensives in other places, the U.S. assistance has been in places that do have oil reserves," said Adam Isacson, a senior policy analyst who tracks Colombia for the Center for International Policy, an organization in Washington that promotes demilitarization and human rights. "Coincidence?" The policies, though, have in many cases benefited ordinary Colombians long forgotten by the state. There are now security forces in all 1,100 Colombian municipalities nationwide; two years ago, nearly 200 towns had no police or soldiers. Soldiers and light tanks line vital roads near big cities where Colombians were often kidnapped. For Petrobank's Colombian subsidiary, Petrominerales, the presence of troops has been reassuring. Steven J. Benedetti, Petrominerales' general manager in Colombia, notes that the company has not gone unscathed: rebels have been attacking its wells since production began in January of 2003. Still, Mr. Benedetti remains optimistic. "It's a situation where we have to weigh the risks with the benefits," he said. "Putumayo is going to be important for a long time to come." Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Friday, October 22, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2004 Â
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END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW! MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW! WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURSDAY, OCT. 28, 7PM, GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303 (NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* NEXT BAUAW MEETING TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 7 P.M. 1380 VALENCIA STREET (BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Dear UFPJ Bay Area Members, (and BAUAW and everyone...bw) "This week both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner came out strongly against Prop N..." Quote from Chronicle Editorial: "Such is the danger of a symbolic resolution written by a group of politicians who have enough trouble solving problems in the streets of their own city. They are clearly over their heads in trying to figure out how to bring peace and stability to Fallujah or Baghdad." 2) Yes on N Lowell coverage/photos "Jeff Paterson" Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:57:11 -0700 3) MWM Meeting Sunday October 24th 5:30PM !!! From: "Douglas MacDonald" To: All MWM supporters and Committee Memebers (NOTE: The Date for the Report Back on the MWM is SUNDAY October 24 th !!!!! ( not the 22 nd ) 4) Just Say No to More Cops! This special Education not Incarceration announcement is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes into its home stretch. 5) A Call to Action: The following Call to Action was raised from the stage at the Million Worker March on Sunday, and supported by a meeting of the Million Worker March Committee on Monday, October 18. 6) Bush Signs $136 Billion Corporate Tax Cut Bill By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET October 22, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corporate-Taxes.html?oref=login 7) Why Didn't Anyone Tell Us? Environmental Racism Threatens the Lives of our Babies By Ebony Colbert http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/why102004.shtml 8) A Schoolgirl Riddled with Bullets. And No One is to Blame Questions remain after Israeli unit commander is cleared of Palestinian pupil's death By Chris McGreal in Rafah Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Guardian/UK http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-03.htm 9) Cancer and the Environment What the Bill Moyers Program "Trade Secrets" Revealed By Roland Sheppard 10) Ogallala Aquifer Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm Published: 2004/10/20 07:48:58 GMT [map on url] http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm Map: The world's water hotspots 11) I Was Robbed Last Sunday My Personal Reflections After the Washington DC. Million Workers March and the Armed Robbery Happened to Me By: Lee Siu Hin October 20, 2004 12) DOCUMENTARY: 'A Killing in Choctaw' tells an extraordinary American story of murder and forgiveness 13) Dear Readers Here is the digest for October 21, 2004 1-Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies of wounds sustained on Wednesday 2-231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in Khan Younis in four year 14) Return of the Class Struggle: Hotel Workers National Battle, One We Can't Afford to Lose By Gene Pepi craigslist.org/cgi-bin/search?areaID=1&subAreaID=1&query=san+francisco&cat=o ff&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1000&minSqft=600&neighborhood= ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Dear UFPJ Bay Area Members, (and BAUAW and everyone...bw) "This week both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner came out strongly against Prop N..." Quote from Chronicle Editorial: "Such is the danger of a symbolic resolution written by a group of politicians who have enough trouble solving problems in the streets of their own city. They are clearly over their heads in trying to figure out how to bring peace and stability to Fallujah or Baghdad." Prop N needs your help. This week both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner came out strongly against Prop N despite endorsements from dozens of San Francisco groups including the SF Labor Council, SF Building & Construction Trades Council, the Sierra Club and the SF Democratic Party. This is a low blow to the local Peace Movement. In both arguments, the editors state that there is no place for opposition to the Iraq War in local politics, appear to ignore the psychological, economic and even physical harm caused to people in our city because of the Iraq War, and seem to encourage the citizens of San Francisco who are voicing their opposition through local government to essentially burry our heads in the sand and let the Bush or Kerry Administration take care of it. Yeah, right. The Chron went so far as to suggest that Prop N was conceived exclusively by ill-witted SF Supervisors, mockingly rename Prop N 'Bring the supes home now', and say "(The Supervisors) are clearly over their heads in trying to figure out how to bring peace and stability to Fallujah or Baghdad." Are we activists over our heads, too? Both newspapers also took the common stance that an immediate withdrawal of US Troops would do more harm than good. But, if they had taken the time to speak to some of us working on the Prop N, maybe they would have come to the conclusion that the US military presence is a source of violence, not tranquility and that our military occupation should be replaced by humanitarian aid in order to bring peace. Maybe they would have also learned about similar legislation that occured in many cities across the nation during the final stages of the Vietnam War. At the bottom of this message are links to the Chron and Examiner Prop N arguments. If you want to help counter their assaults, please send your opinion to the editors: http://www.sfgate.com/feedback/ letters@examiner.com Finally, to give you an idea of the Chron's cogent perspective on local politics, today's headline in their online political section is 'Lovin' Mouthfuls' in which "Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom recently shared steamy details about hubby Gavin's sexuality, prowess and much more...". I'm sorry, but is that really newsworthy? Jon Previtali Bring Our Troops Home Now, Vote Yes on N! www.yesonn.net Chron (10/21/04) "Bring the supes home now" (No on Prop N) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/21/EDGD99CLKK1.DTL Examiner (10/19/04) "No on Prop N" http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/101904op_editorial ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) Yes on N Lowell coverage/photos "Jeff Paterson" Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:57:11 -0700 Hi folks, Here is the IMC coverage with photos from yesterday's "Yes on N" rally at Lowell I filed today. Feel free to use the photos for anything related to the campaign. High school students organize rally against the war, for SF prop N. http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/10/1700635.php Jeff for Not in Our Name ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) MWM Meeting Sunday October 24th 5:30PM !!! From: "Douglas MacDonald" To: All MWM supporters and Committee Memebers (NOTE: The Date for the Report Back on the MWM is SUNDAY October 24th! (not the 22nd) Dear Brothers and Sisters; The SF MWM Committee voted at our last meting to have a report back to describe and discuss what occurred and what will come from the MWM on Washington . Please make certain to attend this Million Worker March Meeting on SUNDAY Oct 24 th at 5:30PM, 400 North Point, the ILWU Local 10 Hall. Proposed Agenda includes: Report Back on March and Evaluation Report Back on Regional Meeting and Proposed Organizing Campaigns/Activities (see below) Discussion on Division of Labor/Structure and Membership of the SF MWM Committee Old Business Telephone Workers Solidarity Event Update on Hotel Workers Struggle Update on Bricklayers Struggle with Valero Refinery Outreach to Local Endorsing Unions and Organizations The following activities and actions were proposed to be brought back to the regional committees in order to gain grass roots input. Some, none or all of the activities can be executed, changed and modified. The next Regional MWM conference call will develop an action plan based the input gathered from the members of each regional committee. The proposed actions and activities are listed below: _ 11/7 - Support rallies for the National Japanese Day of Protest _ November - Develop local workers boards to take testimony on the harassment of workers organizing drives, the difficulty in obtaining workers compensation and the general attack on workers rights in each region of the nation. _ November - Contacting UNITE/HERE to determine what the MWM regional committees can do to support the national struggle of the hotel and restaurant workers. Propose a National Day of Solidarity with these workers struggle for a fair contract. _ 12/3-12/10 - Support the National week of anti-war protests. _ 12/4 - 12/5 - Attend the US Labor Against the War Conference in Chicago and advocate for the cooperation of the MWM movement and USLAW. _ December - Send representatives to the Labor Party Meeting to advocate for cooperation between the MWM movement and the Labor Party. _ 1/20/05 - Participate as a delegation in the anti-inauguration activities _ 3/20/05 - Support International Women's Day activities. _ 5/1/05 - (International Labor Day) Promote a global demonstration against privatization while building international solidarity for workers rights. _ 6/23/05 - Organize protests against Taft-Hartley, the slave-labor law that undermines union organizing and strikes. 6/23 is the anniversary of the creation and adoption of Taft-Hartley. _ 7/7/05 - Send representatives to the national AFL-CIO convention in Chicago to promote the MWM movement and advocate for cooperation between the organized labor movement and community organizations on the demands of the MWM. _ 7/16/05 - Convene a National MWM Conference in order to promote the MWM demands and the independent movement of working people mobilizing in their own name to advance their own needs in their own voice. _ Encourage ongoing regional actions and organizing around the MWM demands by building labor-community alliances and coalitions in each region. Solidarity; Douglas MacDonald 925-890-6430 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Just Say No to More Cops! This special Education not Incarceration announcement is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes into its home stretch. Hi Friends, Please join me at the fundraiser for the No on Measure Y campaign (just say no to more cops) in Oakland this Friday night, 8pm, Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, downtown Oakland, and at the following events Saturday and Monday. The movie "Every Mother's Son" is a powerful documentary on three victims of police murder in New York City and the mothers' quest for justice and accountability, and the panel afterwards with the mothers of Idris Stelly, Cammerin Boyd, and Malaika Parker of Bay Area Policewatch will bring it home to the Bay Area. Californians for Justice is the latest endorser of No on Y; let's keep working to build a movement for peace and justice in Oakland. Thank you, Aaron Shuman 510-938-0654 mobile 510-428-9417 home From: "Education Not Incarceration" Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 11:38:00 -0700 (PDT) To: ednotinc@riseup.net Subject: Special Announcement for No on Measure Y NO ON MEASURE Y!!!! This special Education not Incarceration announcement is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes into its home stretch. First is a list of 3 upcoming No on Measure Y events. Following that is a powerful essay written by a high school student at Oakland Tech HS about being racially profiled in the hallway of his school. Please endorse the No on Y campaign and share this with your friends. No on Measure Y: Jobs, Housing, Education and Health Care, Not 63 More Cops 1. Fundraiser for No on Measure Y A screening of the film, "Every Mother's Son," which is about victims of police violence in New York City. There will be guest speakers following the film, including mothers of the victims. The event is happening this Friday, October 22nd, from 8pm-10pm at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, which is located at 390 27th Street (near 27th and Broadway) Suggested Donation of $5-10, but no-one will be turned away for lack of funds. 2. Saturday, October 23rd: Stop America's Other War. March for Social Justice and Against Measure Y, beginning at 11AM at Lake Merrit (Macarthur and Grand) 3. Monday, October 25th, No on Measure Y: Rally Against Police Brutality, Racial Profiling and Harrassment: 10:30AM at the Oakland Police Headquarters, 7th Str. and Washington St. Make a Donation... If you can't make it to the fundraiser or the other events, you can still help out by donating money to the No on Measure Y campaign. Any amount of money would be appreciated! Checks can be made payable to No on Measure Y.org and sent to: No on Measure Y, 3746 39th Ave, Oakland, CA 94619 A BLACK OAKLAND YOUTH SPEAKS OUT AGAINST MEASURE Y Please pass this on to your friends (not to other listservs). Please sign it at the bottom with your name and organization to show that you are endorsing No on Measure Y. If you are signature # 5,10,15 etc. please also send the e-mail to noonmeasurey@yahoo.com http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/1703950.php What Are You Doing in the Hall? by Laurence Ashton/PoorNewsNetwork Youth in Media One Black youth speaks out against Measure Y and the march toward a whiter, richer more militarized Oakland " What are you doing in the hall?" A mechanical voice shot through the cavernous hall of Oakland Technical High School. It couldn't have been for me, I thought, I had a hall pass and wasn't causing no trouble for noone "  did you hear me what are doing in the hall?" And then it hit me , it was for me and this time it was accompanied the dreaded click click noise of police heels studded with metal tips for that almost like-a-gun sound. "I have a pass," I turned around and faced two Oakland Police Officers who by this time were now fingering their guns and coming toward me, clicking in unison. "Let me see it" They had reached me now and one of them was less than five inches away from my face" I fumbled for my jacket pocket, as I did 'the other cop began whispering into his shoulder, "code call for back-up" Suddenly before my nervous hands could find the pass, I was against the wall and they were patting me down. Within seconds instead of weapons, they found the pass and after a short cough, one of them helped me up and said, "you should of spoke up sooner, next time keep your pass in your hand" With that, they both walked on down the hall ready to harass the next unsuspecting student who happened in their path. Later that day I found out that the Oakland Police Department had been called on campus for "a disturbance" which turned out was nothing, so I figured just to make their day not a complete waste of time, they decided to get me on a casual WWB (Walking While Black) violation. But of course what they failed to differentiate was the fact that I wasn't just "walking" I was a 16 year High School student walking through The Halls of my school and, in my opinion, they had absolutely no right in there in the first place. This disgusting experience, one of many I have encountered as young African Descendent male living in Amerikka, happened almost 3 years ago, and it all came back to me in living sickening color when my editor at PNN asked me to write about the proposed legislation Measure Y, which aims to put at least 63 more cops on the streets in Oakland funding it with a new flat tax on Oakland homeowners. Measure Y will go on November's ballot because it was approved by a majority vote of the Oakland City Council, and instead of funding the already poverty stricken Oakland schools will direct 60 percent of the newly raised taxes to hire more police officers in Oakland. Education Not Incarceration reported that just like in my case, cops don't prevent violence, they cause violence, they instigate problems where there aren't any. When there were less cops on Oakland's streets such as between 1995 - 1996 when there approximately 100 less cops on the streets, homicides decreased from 152 to 102 and a similar situation occurred from 1999 to 2000, when homicide rates decreased when the number of Oakland police officers decreased. Those of us who deal on the frontline of racism and poverty have known all of this for a long time, in my case, not only is it my situation but my fathers' who is a houseless, mentally ill Black man. He lives homelessly in LA and the Bay Area and gets harassed, abused and profiled by cops every day. He doesn't get accepted into over-filled supportive housing or access to scarce mental health treatment just because he is arrested for sleeping in a park at night. And similarly, I don't get a better public education because I get harassed in my school's hall. Police don't get at the root causes of poverty and racism; they just make life harder for the poor folks and the folks of color unlucky enough to be on their radar screen that day. Now I am not saying that all cops are bad, only most of them, but the idea that getting more cops will solve Oakland's' problems is just more Jerry Drowning of our scarce resources and services to supposedly make life better for scared rich folks who want to move foreword with the march towards a whiter, richer, more militarized Oakland. www.poormagazine.org I ENDORSE NO ON MEASURE Y: *Organization Names are for identification purpose 1. Jonah Zern, Education not Incarceration and Oakland Education Association 2. Zachary Runningwolf, Native American Leader 3. Tommy Escarcega, Proyecto Common Touch 4. Alice DoValle, Justice Now 5. Wilson Riles Jr., Oakland Community Action Network 6. David Laub, Oakland Education Association 7. Desley Brooks, Oakland Citycouncilwoman 8. Greg Hodge, School Board Member 9. Patricia Loya, Centro Legal de la Raza 10. Lisa Gutierez Guzman, Teachers for Social Justice 11. Fannie Brown, state co-chair, ACORN 12. Heath Maddom, Education not Incarceration 13. Cici Malin. Education not Incarceration 14. Jumoke Hinton Hodge 15. Dwayne Wiggins 16. Ricardo Barba Benefit , Film Showing And Music For San Francisco Unite-HERE Local 2 Locked Out Hotel Workers Hotel Workers Battle For Justice A series of films/videos celebrating the struggle of hotel and restaurant workers. Friday October 29, 2004 6:30 PM New College Of California rm 4 777 Valencia St. San Francisco Sliding Scale $5.00-$10.00 Join labor supporters and activists when LaborFest will screen hotel worker videos from 1946 Hotel Workers Strike with striking workers "Beauty Pageant" at the Mark Hopkins "Walking Out" a video of the Zim's restaurant workers strike "Union Town" of the 1980 hotel workers strike Sponsored by LaborFest P.O. Box 40983 San Francisco, CA 94140 (415)642-8066 laborfest@laborfest.net Co-sponsored by Labor Video Project P.O. Box 425584 San Francisco, CA 94142 (415)282-1908 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) A Call to Action: The following Call to Action was raised from the stage at the Million Worker March on Sunday, and supported by a meeting of the Million Worker March Committee on Monday, October 18. We forward this to you in lieu of a full report of this historic and important event, which has formed a new level of unity between the antiwar movement and the workers' struggle. We encourage activists across the country to begin discussing December 3-10. Send us your ideas and feedback as soon as possible. There has been a suggestion that Friday, December 3 might be a perfect day for student walkouts--this is something that student activists will know best. In the coming days, this web page will report on the specific proposals for action on the various days, Dec. 3-10, including actions planned by labor activists and unions, by students and youth, and by community organizers. Please contact us to endorse, to offer feedback, and to share your ideas: stopthewar@antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org ***ENOUGH! A Call to Action Dec 3 - Dec 10 "The War Must Stop Now!" Week Not one more life - or U.S. bullet or bomb - or new war to pacify Iraq. It is with a shared sense of seriousness and urgency that we appeal to all antiwar forces, including: those of us who are based in the union/workers movement; organizations that are fighting for jobs, health care and housing; youth and student organizations; veterans; military families; military resisters; solidarity movements; and all the other progressive movements - to make the week of Friday Dec. 3 - Friday Dec. 10 (International Human Rights Day) a time for truly mass action across the country to Stop The War Now! including job actions, student walkouts, boycotts, and business closings. The U.S. has started a new war to conquer Iraq - It Will Not Work - But it will be deadly - UNLESS we say, "No More!" The bombing raids on Falluja and other Iraqi cities have been intensifying, and after the U.S. presidential elections, the occupation forces are preparing a full-scale new war to "pacify" Iraq in preparation for phony U.S.-controlled elections in January. This assault will not subdue the Iraqi people; they have made it clear that they want the U.S., and U.S.-led occupation forces to leave immediately. However, this new desperate and deadly plan to conquer a people who refused to be conquered will cause enormous death and destruction unless we make it clear that the war will no longer be tolerated. The War & Occupation must end now! And the People can end it! Our challenge, especially for those of us who have marched against the war, and those of us who have worked hard to organize those marches, to remind ourselves that the election is not going to stop the war, and that waiting for something beyond our control to stop the war only weakens our movement. The majority of the people want the war and occupation to end immediately. It is up to us to act with a sense of urgency, immediacy, passion, and determination. It is time to say ÂNo More! Jobs - Unions - Healthcare - Education - Housing - Bring the Troops Home Now! stopthewar@antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org Million Workers March Audio and Video by Ryme Katkhouda, Fred Nguyen and the dc-radio-coop http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/107031/index.php Read the Washington Post article about the Million Worker March: http://www.antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org/washingtonpost.htm http://www.antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org To Donate: http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org Other Upcoming Actions: Dec. 4 - No Draft, No Way Conference in New York in NYC Dec. 5 - Indoor Solidarity Rally with Haiti in NYC Jan. 20 - Counter-Inaugural in Washington, DC Anyone can subscribe. Send an email request to AntiWar4theMillionWorkerMarch-subscribe@organizerweb.com To unsubscribe AntiWar4theMillionWorkerMarch-unsubscribe@organizerweb.com Subscribing and unsubscribing can also be done on the Web at http://www.organizerweb.com/mailman/listinfo/antiwar4themillionworkermarch ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Bush Signs $136 Billion Corporate Tax Cut Bill By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET October 22, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corporate-Taxes.html?oref=login WASHINGTON (AP) -- With no fanfare, President Bush on Friday signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups. Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year measure was described by supporters as critically necessary to aid beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs over the past four years. But opponents charged that the tax package had grown into a massive giveaway that will add to the complexity of the tax system and end up rewarding multinational companies that move jobs overseas. There was no ceremony for the bill-signing. White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced it on Air Force One as Bush flew to a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania. Bush mentioned the new tax law at the beginning of a health care event in Canton, Ohio. ``I signed a bill that's going to help our manufacturers -- that will save $77 billion over the next 10 years for the manufacturing sector of America,'' Bush said. ``That will help keep jobs here.'' The handling of the corporate tax bill was in contrast to Bush's action on Oct. 4 when he sat before television cameras on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, to sign three tax-cut breaks popular with middle-class voters and reviving other tax incentives for businesses. Bush's campaign rival, Sen. John Kerry, missed the vote on the corporate tax breaks. Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said there were many important things in the bill but that ``George Bush filled the bill up with corporate giveaways and tax breaks for multinational companies that send jobs overseas. In his first budget, John Kerry will call for the repeal of all the unwarranted international tax breaks that George Bush included in this bill.'' The Joint Tax Committee said the overall bill would not increase the deficit because the $136 billion in tax cuts were balanced by $136 billion in tax increases. Democrats contended the true costs of the tax cuts would be nearly $80 billion higher because Republicans used accounting gimmicks such as having popular provisions expire after a few years. The original purpose for the legislation was to repeal a $5 billion annual tax break provided to American exporters that was ruled illegal by the Geneva-based World Trade Organization. Repeal of the tax break was needed to lift retaliatory tariffs that are now being imposed on more than 1,600 American manufactured products and farm goods exported to Europe. The bill replaces the $49.2 billion export tax break with $136 billion in new tax breaks over the next decade for a wide array of groups from farmers, fishermen and bow and arrow hunters to some of America's largest corporations. The legislation also includes a $10.1 billion buyout of quotas held by tobacco farmers. However, a Senate provision that would have coupled this buyout with regulation of tobacco by the Food and Drug Administration was dropped by the conference committee that resolved differences between the two chambers. The measure is the most sweeping overhaul of corporate tax law since 1986. It provides a wide range of tax benefits for native Alaskan whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans and NASCAR race track owners. The centerpiece is $76.5 billion in new tax relief for the battered manufacturing sector, but manufacturing is broadly defined to include not just factories but also oil and gas producers, engineering, construction and architectural firms and large farming operations. The bill was seen as must-pass legislation because it repeals a $5 billion annual subsidy for U.S. exporters that has been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Because of that ruling, 1,600 American exports to Europe have been hit by penalty tariffs that now stand at 12 percent and are rising by 1 percentage point a month. In addition to the $76.5 billion in tax relief for manufacturing, the measure would also provide $42.6 billion in tax relief to multinational companies. Supporters argued that the tax relief for multinational corporations would boost the competitiveness of U.S. companies, but opponents argued that it would simply provide more tax benefits to support the movement of U.S. jobs overseas. To pay for the $136 billion total of new tax relief over the next decade, the legislation would rely on the savings from repealing the export subsidy and would close corporate loopholes and tax shelters -- thereby raising an estimated $82 billion over the next decade. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Why Didn't Anyone Tell Us? Environmental Racism Threatens the Lives of our Babies By Ebony Colbert http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/why102004.shtml Ebony holds little Shana, with Shawn beside them and Keshawn standing behind, in this Christmas 2003 family portrait. Part 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle's major front page exposé on California neighborhoods with unusually high rates of infant death gave us a glimpse into the lives of Bay View Hunters Point residents Tuli and Walter Hughes, a couple whose six-year marriage had been burdened with several miscarriages and the depression that follows. After five such losses, Tuli's doctor informed her that she had a weak cervix, for which she was treated and given much needed attention. She eventually conceived and carried to term a beautiful baby girl, who just turned a year old. Their story is one that is all too familiar for many young people of child bearing age in Bay View Hunters Point, including myself. This is why I felt compelled to write this article: Also a BVHP resident, I am the mother of a happy, healthy 17-month-old baby girl and am expecting a baby boy in January of 2005. My fiancé and I, though ecstatic, are being very cautious. Together since March 1999, we experienced miscarriages once in the year 2000 and twice in 2001 - all before the third month of pregnancy. I was diagnosed, by a nurse practitioner at Kaiser, as having polycystic ovaries, a reproductive disorder that affects the hormones responsible for ovulation and conception. It causes lapses in your menstrual cycle and spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) along with a host of other problems. After getting a second opinion at San Francisco General Hospital, I was told by a fertility specialist that the disorder was not only hereditary but common among women of color and those who are overweight. He also told me that he had treated quite a few cases in women who lived in Hunters Point for the same disorder. It wasn't until my fiancé and I moved away from the Bay View in 2002 that we were able to conceive and carry a child to term. April 24, 2003, the day my daughter was born, was the happiest day of my life. For many women in Bay View Hunters Point, the confusion and embarrassment of reproductive disorders and infertility have heard many cases of them losing their unborn children before they feel the first kicks. Erin McCormick, who wrote the Chronicle's five-part series, "Too young to die" (10/3-7/04, www.sfgate.com/infantmortality/), surmised that the "stress of racism, environmental problems, poverty and crime may explain why so many babies die young." Her article shed light on a problem whose cause could literally be "up in the air." Until now, no one, not even the San Francisco Department of Public Health, has disclosed to residents how these issues may also be the cause of hundreds of cases of infertility among BVHP's female population. To date, no studies on the matter have been published. Even those young women in our community who are not interested in having children any time in the near future may find it interesting to know that their chances for even conceiving a child may be lower than those in other neighborhoods in the city. In the past 10 years, we have learned of high instances of breast cancer and asthma in BVHP, zip code 94124. However, no stretch of the imagination could prepare us for the reality that not only are our children at higher risk for death due to violence, they are also less likely to even be born - and more than twice as likely to perish before their first birthday than those who are merely living in a nearby zip code. Infant mortality rates have dropped significantly throughout the United States in the past 16 years. San Francisco, in fact, has the lowest rate of infant death of any large city in the U.S. However, according to the Chronicle, which studied 10 years of state data, Black babies in Bay View Hunters Point are three times more likely to die than white babies born throughout California! The mortality rate for all infants in BVHP is 2.5 times higher than for San Francisco citywide. So how it is possible for a woman to have a healthy pregnancy and uneventful birth and still lose a child - who seems perfectly healthy - before he utters his first word? One young woman I spoke with recalls the funeral of a friend's "healthy" baby boy. "It was so sad, and everyone was wondering how it could have happened. My friend doesn't smoke, she doesn't drink. The baby slept in his own crib. He shouldn't have died. His parents said they woke up and he just wasn't breathing. He was fine before he went to sleep. He always slept through the night. When she woke up to check on him to see if he needed changing, he didn't have a pulse. He was only 5 months old." Until the Chronicle's study was released, most of us would have called it the will of God. Now it's open to speculation. So-called experts in the field would expect you to believe that young mothers in the Bay View don't get adequate pre-natal care, don't eat right, use drugs and alcohol or are uneducated when it comes to parenting. They put the blame on the victims. New moms and their families tend to disagree with these opinions. Of the infant death cluster the Chronicle found - five families who had lost a total of eight babies around Double Rock, near the Shipyard - only one mother had a history of drug abuse. Many new mothers complain that when they visit their doctors' offices, they are immediately referred to social workers. They are often treated as statistics and even insulted by doctors who question, "Are you sure of the paternity of the baby?" "I feel like they're trying to intimidate me," said Porshe, 16. "I know that I'm young to be having a baby. But the point is that I'm pregnant and I should be treated the same way as any pregnant woman - with respect. They shouldn't just assume that I'm not with my baby's daddy or that I'm ignorant and don't know how to take care of my baby. That's what makes people not even want to go to the doctors until they go into labor. They make you feel ashamed when you should be happy." Although some of these mommies are busy with school and work and are discouraged - once treated poorly by their doctors - from returning, they still make the trip, often across town, to make sure their babies are healthy. In addition, more young fathers are committed to attending the appointments than ever before. Mothers, fathers and even grandparents are also getting more involved in the care of the pregnancy. So why hasn't anyone informed them that though their pregnancy may not be "high risk," the very life of their newborn child may be? One mother says that the answer lies within the healthcare system. Latiesha Bermont, 31, says that she didn't know she was pregnant the first time until she was three months along. She was only 20 years old. "I never had regular periods and the doctor never made a big deal out of it, so neither did I. I went to the doctor's, and the pregnancy test was negative. I started cramping one night really bad and was bleeding heavy, so I went to emergency. That's when they decided to give me a blood test. It was positive," she sighed. "By the time I found out I was pregnant, I was already miscarrying. They said there was nothing they could do. I felt confused." Like many young women, Latiesha admits that she didn't expect to ever have a miscarriage. She also says that she visited the doctor regularly because she had "issues with her cycle." She swears they should have been able to tell her something, but her doctors remained indifferent. She was never given an answer to her many questions about her problems with infertility. She is convinced that not knowing is what put her at risk. Not stress or poverty. She changed her insurance and eventually was told she had a non-working right ovary that wasn't producing enough estrogen. After years of treatment and trying, at 24 years old she finally conceived a child, who died of SIDS just four months later. At 26, she saw another specialist who helped her to safely deliver her daughter, Unique, who is almost 5 years old. Even though she and her husband have been trying for three years, though, they have yet to be blessed with another pregnancy. "I guess the medicine isn't working anymore. I think we may just give up," she says. How is it possible that our neighborhood and a few other neighborhoods of color in the most populous state in the country have held the record for infant mortality for over 10 years? Some who have lived in the Bay View for decades are convinced, as is the Chronicle, that environmental racism looms just below the surface of this problem. For years, residents have complained about the stench coming from the sewage treatment plant on Phelps Avenue. "That can't be healthy," one non-Bay View resident exclaimed as the No. 19 bus passed the facility. "It smells like death over here. How can anyone breathe?" Residents have complained to the Department of Public Health about the abundance of respiratory problems and cancers in the areas surrounding the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. All to no avail. If nothing has been done about these issues, how can we be sure that a problem as monumental as infant mortality won't be swept under the rug? How is it possible that the same things are happening in predominately Black or Latino neighborhoods in both Oakland and Richmond, yet no one has bothered to bring it to the forefront? The Naval Shipyard, the city sewage plant, the PG&E and Mirant power plants and several other toxic dumping grounds and waste facilities in or around BVHP have yet to be investigated as causes for not only the death of dozens of babies, but the reproductive disorders and cancers plaguing the young women who will eventually give them life. There are also hot spots of infant death in South Central LA and in Fresno and Shafter, Calif., in the Central Valley, all in low-income neighborhoods populated by Blacks or Latinos and exposed to highly polluted air. The Chronicle reports: "Studies published in the past few years link pesticides, carbon monoxide and tiny airborne particles with birth defects, prematurity, low birth weight and respiratory ailments that can lead to an infant's demise." Nevertheless, the blame has continued to be laid at the feet of the parents. Already deemed incompetent by their lack of income, these moms and dads often blame themselves. "Stuff like this wasn't even discussed when we were growing up," says 50-year-old grandmother Sylvia Gross. "If your baby died, it was crib death. This has been happening for years, babies dying, and nobody blamed nobody. We didn't even contemplate that the very air we were breathing could be the cause. It's amazing that no one has even mentioned that it was a possibility until now." This is what our local government wants. They take no responsibility for the environmental genocide being unleashed upon our community and don't anticipate confrontation because we have been conditioned to believe our suffering is ultimately our own fault. We've been taught that the best way to have a safe pregnancy is to eat right and exercise, not indulge in drugs or alcohol and get prenatal care as early as possible. Our doctors have continued to us the standard "Put your baby on his back to sleep," "Don't smoke in the house," "Breastfeeding is best" script when we become new parents. Never once are you told, "If you live near power plants, sewage plants and landfills, your baby may die ... but even if you try your best to be a good parent, if your baby gets sick or dies, we'll blame you." If someone had had the forethought to warn us, perhaps this issue would have been brought to the front page long ago and those who really deserve the blame could have been held accountable. While local politicians give Bay View Hunters Point gentrification-inducing perks like Muni Light Rail, they should be fighting to make the city's air safe for all its residents to breathe - not just for those who live in Diamond Heights, Nob Hill or the Castro. They should shut down plans to build housing in the Hunters Point Shipyard, which is unfit for human habitation, investigate how the release of toxins and particulates into the air from the city's sewage plant and PG&E's power plant are affecting the quality of life in our community, and provide our citizens with programs that will educate them about how to live healthier lives. Instead, they continue to target our young mothers as potential CPS cases, hire corrupt companies to fill the most unsafe land with homes that will ultimately be our coffins, and ignore or block our own efforts to rebuild our community. One brand new mommy of twins agreed to give me her opinions on the topic but only if she could challenge me with some questions of her own: "Has everyone been so blinded by the bad media coverage about HP that they can't see that this is bigger than any shooting on the 10 o'clock news? What makes our children's lives less important than the babies born in Fillmore or in Chinatown? Why is it okay for so many of them to die, and nobody does anything about it?" I couldn't even begin to give her the answers she was looking for, but I suggested that in her quest to find them, she start with answering this one first: "Why didn't anyone tell us?" I'm not sure we'll get any closure on the pain this issue has caused any time soon. But I am confident that with hard work and research, we'll have the answers we're looking for. I doubt that our local government will be happy to answer them for us. I am hopeful that with patience and diligence on the part of myself and my family, my unborn son will survive these statistics, and I pray that with the grace of God, others will as well. Email Ebony at efcolbert@yahoo.com. San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415) 671-0316 Email: editor@sfbayview.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) A Schoolgirl Riddled with Bullets. And No One is to Blame Questions remain after Israeli unit commander is cleared of Palestinian pupil's death By Chris McGreal in Rafah Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Guardian/UK http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-03.htm The undisputed facts are these: it was broad daylight, 13-year-old Iman al-Hams was wearing her school uniform, and when she walked into the Israeli army's "forbidden zone" at the bottom of her street she was carrying her satchel. A few minutes later the short, slight child was pumped with bullets. Doctors counted at least 17 wounds and said much of her head was destroyed. Beyond that there is little agreement between the army top brass and Palestinian witnesses as to how Iman came to die last week, or even among members of the military unit responsible for killing the child in Gaza's Rafah refugee camp. Palestinian witnesses described the shooting as cold-blooded. They say soldiers could not have failed to see they were firing at a child, and she was killed as she already lay wounded and helpless. "Some soldiers were lying on the ground and shooting very heavily toward her," said Basim Breaka, who saw the killing from her living room. "Then one of the soldiers walked to her and emptied his clip into her. For sure she died on the second or third bullet. I could see her lying on the ground, not moving. I can't imagine why that soldier wanted to shoot her after she was dead." This week an army investigation cleared the unit's commander after some of his own soldiers accused him of giving the order to shoot knowing the target was a young girl, and of then emptying the clip of his automatic rifle into her. On the day she died, Iman left home shortly before 7am for the short walk to school in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood. The school, facing the heavily militarized border with Egypt, is under the shadow of a towering camouflaged Israeli gunpost. Like almost every other building in the area, Iman's school is pockmarked by bullets. Last year, a 13-year-old boy was shot dead by the army outside the school. This year, two pupils and a teacher were wounded by bullets inside the grounds. Iman walked past her school with her satchel over her shoulder, crossed the road and climbed down a small sandy bank to an area that was an olive and citrus orchard until the army's bulldozers flattened it in April. She had entered the "forbidden zone" next to the watchtower where any Palestinian risks being shot. The schoolgirl kept on walking toward the tower but was still several hundred meters away when two shots caught her in the leg. She dropped her bag, turned, tried to hobble away, and fell. Four or five soldiers emerged from the army post and shot at her from a distance. Palestinian witnesses and some Israeli soldiers say that the platoon commander moved in closer to put two bullets in the child's head. They say that he then walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Iman's corpse was taken to Rafah's hospital and inspected by Dr Mohammed al-Hams. "She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs," he said. "The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face. Another bullet went from the neck to the face and damaged the area under the mouth." The doctor said that the nature of the wounds suggested that Iman was already dead when some of the bullets hit her. The army swiftly blamed Iman for her own death by entering the forbidden zone. At first, the military said soldiers suspected the girl was carrying a bomb in her satchel. When it turned out there was no bomb, it said she was being used by Palestinian combatants to lure troops from their post. But some soldiers in the unit responsible, the Shaked battalion, were outraged at what they saw as a cover-up. One told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that a soldier in the watchtower had told the company commander that he was about to shoot a child: "Don't shoot, it's a little girl". "The company commander approached her, shot two bullets into her, walked back towards the force, turned back to her, switched his weapon to automatic and emptied his entire magazine into her. We were in shock. We couldn't believe what he was doing. Our hearts ached for her. Just a girl of 13," a soldier told the newspaper. Other soldiers said that if the company commander was not dismissed they would refuse to serve under him: "It is a disgrace that he is still in his position. We want him kicked out." The accounts of Palestinian witnesses back the claims of the protesting soldiers. Fuad Zourob was working at a small brick factory overlooking the area where Iman was shot. "The girl was walking in the sand. She was shot from the army post. She was hit in the leg and she was crawling. "Then she stood up and started to try and run and then she fell. The shooting went on. The soldiers arrived by foot. One came close to the girl and started to shoot. He walked away, turned back and then shot her some more," he said. Yousef Breaka watched from the balcony of his second floor flat. He owns the 12 acres of bulldozed land beside the building which Iman crossed minutes before she was shot. "The first shot came from the army post. It hit her in the leg. She was starting to walk on and then fell. She dropped her bag. They were firing, heavy shooting. I am sure she died before the two soldiers came and shot her bag and then her," he said. Mr Breaka's living room wall is decorated with the holes of nine bullets fired from the Israeli army watchtower two years ago. A tenth bullet killed his 80-year-old mother, Jindiya. Neither Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, nor the witnesses know why the girl walked into the forbidden zone. "I can't explain why she was there. I've asked everyone and no one can explain it. Perhaps she just wanted to walk on the sand. Perhaps she was confused. I don't know," said Mr al-Hams. Mr Zourob was surprised to see Iman walking at the back of his factory. "I was astonished. I didn't know why she was there. No one goes toward that area. She was alone but some of the school children were calling her: Iman, why are you there?" he said. The watchtower sits atop a large hill of sand. It is surrounded by barbed wire and other defenses. Even before she was hit in the leg, it would have taken Iman 10 minutes or more to scramble up the hill. Once she was wounded, there was little chance she could have got to the watchtower. If she was carrying a bomb, it could have harmed Israeli troops had she got close enough to them. But after Iman was shot in the leg she dropped her school bag. Palestinian witnesses say soldiers pumped it full of bullets, establishing that it was not a bomb, but still went on to shoot the girl. The Israeli army's rules of engagement permit soldiers to wound a person who enters a security zone and does not heed warning shots to leave. But once the person is wounded, soldiers are only permitted to kill if there is an imminent threat to their lives. Witnesses say Iman was helpless and posed no such threat. Her father is a teacher at a primary school neighboring his daughter's. "The day Iman was killed, the headmistress of her school called me at 8.15 and asked why she wasn't at school. I said I had no idea.," he said. "I ran to the school. The teachers and headmistress told me the army shot toward a small girl but she was fine, don't worry. I calmed down a bit when I heard that and thought maybe they shot toward her to make her afraid and arrested her for interrogation and they will release her. But then they declared her dead. That was the worst moment in my life." This week, the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, completed his investigation and pronounced that the company commander had not acted unethically in the shooting of Iman but was being suspended for losing the confidence of his soldiers. The speed of the investigation has revealed once again the cursory nature of the army's inquiries into such shootings. A more thorough investigation usually only follows if there is external pressure, such as in the case of three Britons shot dead by Israeli soldiers over the past two years. The military has quietly dropped an investigation into the killing by an Israeli sniper of a brother and sister, both teenagers, in Rafah in May. The army falsely claimed that the pair were killed by a Palestinian bomb and only began the investigation after journalists found the bodies of the children and reported that both had a single shot to the head. Under pressure from the revelations of the Shaked battalion soldiers, the military police has launched a separate investigation into the death of Iman al-Hams. The soldiers say they will insist that it is completed. (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 (c) Copyrighted 1997-2004 www.commondreams.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) Cancer and the Environment What the Bill Moyers Program "Trade Secrets" Revealed By Roland Sheppard On March 26, 2001, a "Bill Moyers PBS Special" titled "Trade Secrets" documented the chemical industry's conspiracy of silence and refusal to properly inform hundreds of thousands of workers about the risks of cancer and other diseases associated with the manufacturing of vinyl chloride (VC) and its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) product. The program was based on a Houston Chronicle article written by Jim Morris in 1998 titled "Rules for hazardous chemicals evolve slowly-Industry challenges frustrate regulation' According to www.mycounsel.com, "a trade secret is any piece of information used in a business that isn't generally known to the public. This is valuable because the information is kept secret. Trade secret law can apply to a broad variety of information, including formulas, patterns, business plans, designs and procedures. The law provides some protection against others from misappropriating, or improperly obtaining, your secret.' Companies in the industry have applied "Trade Secret Protection' to their study of health effects caused by the chemicals they produce. Usually, these "Trade Secrets" or "Smoking Guns" do not become known until a successful lawsuit is filed against a company and their files are opened. This was the case with the Tobacco Companies and was the case with the manufacturers of vinyl chloride. The PBS show made it clear that the drive for profits superceded precaution for workers lives in particular and life in general. The show was a good introduction to the hazards of capitalist production. It demonstrated the endemic problems of capitalist production and its effects on the environment. It will help increase the general awareness of the causes of cancer and other diseases. However, the program only showed the "tip of the iceberg' about the daily catastrophe of production for profit at the expense of human lives and the future of humanity. The chemical industry is well aware of the environmental health consequences of its products. The following is from "Environmental Illness Briefing Paper" published by the Chemical Manufactures Association, Washington D.C. (1990) "There is no doubt these patients are ill...and deserving of compensation, understanding and expert medical care (...) The primary impact on society would be the huge cost associated with the legitimization of environmental illness" The conclusion in the above statement is absolutely correct. There is currently a huge cost in human life and the pursuit of happiness. The cost they talk about are the huge costs, in compensation for victims of chemical diseases, if all of the "Trade Secrets" become public knowledge forcing the recognition and "legitimization of environmental illness!" In reality, Trade Secrets only get exposed after a sufficient number ("body count") of workers and others die from a common exposure to a chemical. The increase in cancer begins with the expansion and development of the chemical industry sine World War II. The development and production of synthetic organic chemicals, used in everyday life, has increased over 100 fold since World War II in the United States. The increase has been geometric, doubling every seven to eight years. In the United States, by the late 1980s, production had reached over 200 billion pounds per year. Many of these new compounds and medicines have been to the benefit of humanity. Unfortunately, only approximately 3 percent of these chemicals have been tested for their toxicity and potential long-range harm. Under the banner of "Better Living Through Chemistry," life and production changed. The "miracle fiber" asbestos was used everywhere and everything was dusted with DDT. Twenty years after their introduction, the death toll from cancer caused by these two substances began to come in. The development and production of synthetic organic chemicals, used in everyday life, has increased over 100 fold since World War II in the United States. The increase has been geometric, doubling every seven to eight years. In the United States, by the late 1980s, production had reached over 200 billion pounds per year. In her book Living Downstream, Sandra Steingraber wrote: "In 1964, two senior scientists at the National Cancer Institute, Wilhelm Hueper and W.C. Conway, wrote, 'Cancers of all types and all causes display even under already existing conditions, all the characteristics of an epidemic in slow motion.' The unfolding epidemic was being fueled, they said in 1964, by "increasing contamination of the human environment with chemical and physical carcinogens and with chemicals supporting and potentiating their action." "And yet the possible relationship between cancer and what Hueper and Conway called 'the growing chemicalization of the human economy' has not been pursued in any systematic, exhaustive way.... "Industrialized countries have far more cancers than countries with little industry (after adjusting for age and population size). One-half of all the world's cancers occur among people living in industrialized countries, even though such people are only one- fifth of the world's population. From these data, WHO (the World Health Organization) has concluded that at least 80 percent of all cancer is attributable to environmental influences." One of the most alarming factors is that the original safety standards that the Occupation Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) adopted in 1971 were the standards set by a private organization called the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH). The ACGIH is a group composed of industrial hygienists from state and local governments, plus academics and industry consultants. From that point on it has been nearly impossible to improve the standards to protect lives. In the late 1970's OSHA administrators estimated that the agency's proposed legislation would produce a 20 percent drop in cancer rates. Since all such regulations are a battle between businesses with their "Trade Secrets' and science independent of corporations the proposed legislation to eliminate 20% of all cancer was never approved by the capitalist politicians. In fact, the current "body count' for cancer is over 40% of the people in the United States will get cancer. Such is the tragedy of "Trade Secrets." The most glaring example is the occupational environment, where workplaces have become "killing fields." In the United States, in 1990 the American Public Health Association estimated that at least 350,000 workers get occupational diseases (cancer, etc.) and 50,000-70,000 workers will die each year from these diseases. Given the steady decline in occupational health these estimates are now most likely much higher! Blue-collar workers and agricultural workers all have higher rates of cancer and other diseases because they receive higher doses of the toxic chemicals at the workplace than the rest of the population. Eventually, these toxins spread to the entire working class as they become part of the environment. An example of this fact is the population living "downwind" from the many Oil Refineries in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer. In EPA terms, this is called a cancer cluster. The EPA , in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of cancer were caused by high rates of smoking in the area-not from the refineries carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the entire Gasoline Refining Industry, in California, had to post this warning in the February 24, 1999 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle: "WARNING: Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil, and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling or using all petroleum products. "Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in and around gasoline stations, refineries, chemical plants, and other facilities that produce, handle, transport, store, or sell crude oil and petroleum and chemical products. "Other facilities covered by this warning include, for example, oil and gas wells, oil and gas treating plants, petroleum and chemical storage tanks, pipeline systems, marine vessels and barges, tank trucks and tank cars loading and unloading facilities, and refueling facilities." The contradiction between governmental agencies agencies is part and parcel of the overall problem of "Trade Secrets." By keeping most of the old pre-OSHA standards and by not even enforcing the regulations that exist due to understaffing and underfunding, the government regulatory agencies are not protecting workers or the public-they are protecting the polluters who are poisoning humanity. The following is an article that I wrote on this subject that was published in San Francisco Painters District Council l#8's Newspaper "The Voice" and was also published in Organized Labor, the newspaper of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. Why Painters Should Wear Respirators and Skin Protection At All Times In our safety classes you are taught to read "MSDS sheets." For prevention of cancer, these sheets are of no value. The reason is that NIOSH, the scientific part of OSHA, does not set the permissible legal (OSHA) limits of particles in the air while you are working. From the following examples from the 1994 NIOSH Pocket Guide To Chemical Hazards, one can see what is wrong with OSHA. SUBSTANCE NIOSH PEL OSHA PEL Benzene. 1 ppm 1 ppm Ethylene Oxide .1 ppm 1 ppm Formaldehyde .0165 ppm 0.75 ppm From Page 342 of the "Pocket Guide": "NIOSH has not identified thresholds that will protect 100% of the population. NIOSH usually recommends that occupational exposures to carcinogens be limited to the lowest feasible concentration.'(In an occupational health video, "Before Their Time," produced by the Windsor Occupational Health Information Service, Windsor Canada, Peter Infante, the Director of Standards for OSHA, stated that NIOSH includes one more cancer per 1000 workers exposed as feasible.) From these facts about two known carcinogens and one probable carcinogen, common in paints, one can tell that OSHA can not prevent occupational cancer. Especially in painters who are exposed to over 150 known and suspected carcinogens and over 3000 hazardous substances daily. As you can see people getting cancer are part of the equation; OSHA pel's are at least ten times higher than NIOSH; therefore, the OSHA "feasible" risk for cancer is at least ten times higher. (This is the usual difference between NIOSH and OSHA.) Cancer being a part of painting is guaranteed by OSHA. Children and spouses of painters also have high rates for cancer. One must also remember that ethylene glycol is the base for most latex paints and radiator fluid. NIOSH recommends when working with ethylene glycol that you should prevent skin and eye contact, wash when contaminated and change clothes daily. OSHA and MSDS sheets can not protect you from occupational diseases. Work safe! Be smart! Wear respirators, gloves, goggles, and long sleeve shirts at all times when painting. Protect yourself and your family from occupational diseases. OSHA tried to correct itself in the 1970's but with no success. If, as OSHA administrators estimated, during the Carter presidency, that their proposed legislation would produce a 20 percent drop in cancer rates, then Ronald Reagan was a carcinogen, and a potent one at that. Today, one can add Clinton to the list. Scientific technology exists to prevent the high rate of occupational diseases, but the profit motive and capitalist competition prevent the implementation of preventive action and proper safety precautions. Science and technology are not an obstacle to maintaining a safe environment. The barrier to a safe environment is capitalism and its paramount principle of production and science for profit. Most environmental studies demonstrate that environmental destruction has become globally intertwined within our society and that the globalization of capitalism has quickened the destruction of the planet. The struggle for environmental health and safety is directly against the very fibre of capitalist production. In fact, environmental illness is so intertwined within our society that it requires all of humanity to act, in their overall interests for survival as a species, to correct the problem. It requires a society where humanity has social control over the entire environment, social, economic, and political- a socialist society in which science is in the interests of humanity in harmony with nature. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 10) Ogallala Aquifer Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm Published: 2004/10/20 07:48:58 GMT [map on url] http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm Map: The world's water hotspots From disappearing lakes and dwindling rivers to military threats over shared resources, water is a cause for deep concern in many parts of the world. Click on the map to read about some of the world's water hotspots. Ogallala Aquifer Ninety-five percent of the United States' fresh water is underground. One crucial source is a huge underground reservoir, the 800-mile Ogallala aquifer which stretches from Texas to South Dakota and provides an estimated third of all US irrigation water. The aquifer was formed over millions of years, but has since been cut off from its original natural sources and is being steadily depleted. In some areas its level is dropping by three to five feet (90 - 150cm) a year. Estimates for its remaining lifespan vary in different areas, ranging from 60 to 250 years. Many farmers in the Texan High Plains, which rely particularly on the underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as they become aware of the hazards of over-pumping. Mexico City Mexico City is sinking because of the amount of water being pumped out from beneath its foundations. One of the largest and most populous cities in the world, it was once a lush land of lakes. The city draws 80% of its water from aquifers below it, and has sunk an estimated nine metres into the soft, drained lake bed since the 1900s. It already buys in a third of its water from surrounding areas, and an estimated million people are dependent on water trucks. Although work is being done on its rusting pipe system, 27% of the city's water is still wasted through leaks. Spain The battle to provide water for Spain's parched southern coast has generated major controversy in recent years. A 4.2 billion euro plan to divert water from the River Ebro to supply the area around Valencia, Almeria and Murcia was abandoned by the incoming Socialist government in 2004. Tens of thousands had protested against the project, which was criticised by environmentalists concerned that it would encourage misuse of water and that the Ebro's fragile delta would suffer. Work had already begun and developers were planning new tourist developments and golf courses when the project was scrapped. The new government plans to build several desalination plants instead to provide water for the near-desert region. Chad Lake Chad, once a huge lake straddling the borders of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, has shrunk by 95% since the mid 1960s. The region's climate has changed during that time, with the monsoon rains which previously replenished the lake now greatly reduced. Local weather changes, rather than global warming, are blamed, but human activities such as overgrazing and crop irrigation are thought to have made the situation worse. Nine million farmers, fishermen, and herders in the region now face water shortages, crop failure, livestock deaths, collapsed fisheries, soil salinity and increasing poverty. There are plans to divert water from a tributary to the Congo to replenish the lake, and also to establish better management of the remaining water. Oil has recently been found in the Chadian sector of the lake, raising hopes of a longer-term solution to the region's economic problems. River Nile The Nile is vitally important to the survival of 160 million people in 10 countries who share the basin in which it flows. To Egypt in particular, the river is a matter of life and death as the country has almost no other source of water. A 1929 treaty between Britain and Egypt said no work would be done on the river that would reduce the volume of water reaching Egypt. But tensions have been rising as neighbouring countries question the treaty - Tanzania, for example, is building a pipeline to extract drinking water and Ethiopia is planning to use the water for irrigation. Cairo has said in the past that it was ready to use force to protect its access to the 7,000km-long river. Talks took place in 2004, but an agreement is yet to emerge. Israel With 5% of the world's population trying to survive on 1% of its water, there is strong competition for water in the Middle East. A series of dry years - together with population growth - has recently increased the pressure. Both Israel and Jordan rely on the River Jordan - but Israel controls it and has cut supplies during times of scarcity. The level of the Sea of Galilee has dropped in recent years, sparking fears that Israel's main reservoir will become salinated. The Palestinians - whose water supply is also controlled by Israel - say supplies are intermittent and expensive, and that the underground aquifer which they share with Israel has become depleted and damaged through overuse. Israeli settlers in the West Bank use several times more water than their Palestinian neighbours. To help ease the crisis, Israel has agreed to buy water from Turkey and is investigating building desalination plants. Iraq Drainage and irrigation schemes carried out by the government of Saddam Hussein in southern Iraq have led to the loss of an estimated 90% of one of the world's most significant wetlands. A vast network of canals has diverted water from the 20,000 square kilometres of marsh land between the Tigris and Euphrates, in places leaving nothing but salty, crusted earth behind. Turkish dams upstream are also thought to have reduced the water flow and contributed to the wetlands' fate. Most of the Marsh Arabs fled, facing both political persecution under Saddam Hussein's regime and the loss of the freshwater which sustained their way of life. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, local people have attempted to restore water flow, but there are reports that this has led to disease as much of the water is contaminated. A UN project to restore the area was announced in July 2004. Turkey Water-rich by Middle-Eastern standards, Turkey has in recent years undertaken an ambitious project to sell water from its Manavgat river across the region. It is still vulnerable to shortages, however - just a few weeks after Turkey agreed to sell water to Israel, officials were warning of a water crisis. Turkey has spent billions of dollars in the past decades building dams to increase its water reserves and boost its hydroelectric capabilities. Two particular projects the Ilisu and Yusefeli dams, have faced delays after several Western companies withdrew funding following bad publicity over human rights concerns. Another project, a system of 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, has provoked criticism from downstream neighbours Iraq and Syria. Aral Sea The Aral Sea in Central Asia was once the world's fourth biggest inland sea, and one of the world's most fertile regions. But economic mismanagement has turned the area into a toxic desert. The two rivers feeding the sea, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, were diverted in a Soviet scheme to grow cotton. Between 1962 and 1994, the level of the Aral Sea fell by 16 metres. The surrounding region now has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, and anaemia and cancers caused by chemicals blowing off the dried sea bed are common. China China is undertaking two huge projects to tackle flooding in the south and drought in the north. The Three Gorges Dam under construction on the Yangtze River aims to control flood waters and generate power. The dam will provide 10% of the country's electricity when finished. More than 600,000 have been moved to make way for a reservoir longer than Lake Michigan behind the $25bn dam. In the north, all three rivers feeding China's Northern Plain are severely polluted, damaging health and limiting irrigation. The lower reaches of the Yellow River, which feeds China's most important farming region, run dry for at least 200 days every year. In the north China plain, 30 cubic kilometres more water is being pumped to the surface each year by farmers than is replaced by the rain. As groundwater is used to produce 40% of the country's grain, experts warn that water shortages could make the country dependent on grain imports. To counter this, work has begun on China's biggest ever construction project - a massive scheme to channel billions of cubic metres of water from the Yangtze to the replenish the dwindling Yellow River. The River Ganges The most sacred Hindu river, the Ganges, is suffering from depletion, pollution and has been the source of a long-running dispute between India and Bangladesh. The Gangorti glacier at the head of the River Ganges is retreating at a rate of 30 metres per year - experts blame climate change. Deforestation in the Himalayas has caused subsoil streams flowing into the river to dry up. Downstream, India controls the flow to Bangladesh with the Farakka Barrage, 10km on the Indian side of the border. Until the late 1990s, India used the barrage to divert the river to Calcutta to stop the city's port drying unds and mangrove forests at the river's delta seriously threatened. The two countries have now signed an agreement to share the water more equally. Water quality, however, remains a huge problem, with high levels of arsenic and untreated sewage in the river water. Southern Australia Australia is the continent with the least rainfall, apart from Antarctica. Its two largest rivers, the Murray and the Darling, have been extensively dammed for power and irrigation, reducing flows to the sea by three-quarters - but providing three million people and 40% of Australia's farms with water. Salt rising to the surface as the lower reaches of the Murray dried out has destroyed prime agricultural land. Wetlands have shrunk, species numbers have dropped and the Australian National Trust has declared the whole river an "endangered area". In the east, the Snowy River was dammed and diverted to the Murray basin decades ago to water the country's dry interior. But the ecological impact on the depleted river was so great that some flow was restored in 2002. Water extraction from the Murray river was capped in 1995 and programmes to repair some of the destruction are now under way. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 11) I Was Robbed Last Sunday My Personal Reflections After the Washington DC. Million Workers March and the Armed Robbery Happened to Me By: Lee Siu Hin October 20, 2004 Last Sunday, October 17 at D.C. I was participating at the historical Million Workers March's (MWM) and organized the immigrant workers tent. After the march, around 9:50 PM when I left the post-MWM event and walk back to my sleeping space, at the corner of O & 11th Street of the D.C. neighborhood (just few blocks away from the event). I was robbed by two African-American youths who were drunk and claimed to have "weapons" on their pocket. They stole my wallet with approx. $80.00 cash, remarkably they didn't stole my cell phone and I was not injured, and I immediately used my cell phone to call the police. I am not here to write my 30 seconds experience of how being robbed; rather I want to talk about why it happened. The experience last Sunday night didn't frightened me at all, rather I felt very sad, because at the earlier same day we just had a labor march to demand justice for the working class & the poor, and demand to hold the corrupt corporations & government accountable, just few hours and less then 2 miles ways away I was robbed. How I can convince the skeptics who caused the problems of poor, and how I can tell the pro-gun, pro-death penalty advocates that more cops and jail is not the answer? And to assume black=criminals is reasonable self-protection on the mean street since I was robbed by two African-American youths? It was ironic that I went to a poor African American neighborhood to attend the post MWM-anarchist event-- who organized by a group of white youths who are not even came from the neighborhood, I was robbed by two black teenagers from the neighborhood, and no choice but need to call white cops for the help, and they didn't help me too much. We need to ask, why this neighborhood? Anyone living in will understand this is the so-called the North eastern part of the D.C., where most poor African-American family lives. It's famous for their impoverishment, high crime, high unemployment rates with crack house, street prostitute, robbery are at every corner. While wealthy and powerful white D.C. politicians and power brokers working just few blocks away from the area (The infamous F.B.I. headquarters are just 10 blocks south at the same 11th street), they are living at the north -western part of the city or Maryland suburbs. With the rapid gentrifications of the neighborhood for the past ten years, many white middle and upper class are moving back to the city, forcing the poor black families out, with the newly build 3-blocks long Washington Convention center had opened recently across the street, this neighborhood will soon become the next Dupont circle kind of the wealthy neighborhood for the white middle classes, with the streets are getting "better" and "safer," the lucky ones from the community will get a job to work at the nearby convention center or newly build shopping establishments, the unlucky one will be eventually force out from the neighborhood. I had so many mixed feelings about the labor and social justice movements--When we were talking about the workers right for the bottom of our society, except beautiful slogans, we still doesn't seem have able to help anyone to win their struggles. Sadly, we spend more time to fight within ourselves then fight for our real enemy-the multi-national corporations, the imperialism and corrupt government policies. Think about it! I was thinking about it deeply when I was walking alone at this neighborhood at the same moment when two teenagers jump from the dark ally to robbed me.... It's ironic that we fight more often within ourselves then to fight against our true enemy-the corporations and the government policies. Just like what happened these days when the AFL-CIO working with right-wing business and CIA-funded sources to launch racists China-bashing campaign, and mobilized the American workers instead to held corporations and the government policy accountable, we blindfully blame China is the reason who American jobs were lost. However, beside thankful that I was not hurt, by miracle they also dropped my lucky half U.S. dollar coin from my wallet, this coin had been following me every step of my life, my work and places I visited for the past 5 years, included Iraq, Mexico and China, it gives a sense of hopes that like what Martin Luther King, Jr. said before-- our dreams will come true one of these days. ActionLA Action for World Liberation Everyday! Tel: (213)403-0131 URL: http://www.ActionLA.org e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org Please join our ActionLA Listserv go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 12) DOCUMENTARY: 'A Killing in Choctaw' tells an extraordinary American story of murder and forgiveness [Carl Ray's refusal to say "sir" to a white man in the deep South one summer night in 1962 led to his father's murder by a white neighbor in 1962. He continued his education and became a successful engineer, but was haunted by depression and nightmares. For years no one who knew him, including his own wife and children, knew about what had happened. But years later, after he had given up a successful career as an engineer to become a stand-up comedian, Carl Ray found a way to tell about this experience through performance art -- and now, a documentary film by Chike C. Nwoffiah called "A Killing in Choctaw: The Power of Forgiveness." Below: (1) An Oct. 20, 2004, *New York Times* story on the film and Carl Ray's story; (2) a description of the original play, from Carl Ray's web site; (3) a review of the play that appeared in a San Jose, CA, magazine in 1999; (4) a description of the documentary, from the web site; (5) the press release for the documentary, dated Aug. 10, 2004; (6) a detailed account in an Oct. 3, 2004, *Mobile Register* (Mobile, AL) story; (7) Carl Ray's biography; (8) booking information. --Mark] 1. HAUNTED BY HIS FATHER'S MURDER AT THE HANDS OF A RACIST By Carol Pogash New York Times October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/movies/20kill.html SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Amelia Ray was 22 when she sat in a darkened theater, watching her father, Carl Ray, perform his autobiographical one-man show, "A Killing in Choctaw." Only then did she discover that he had witnessed the murder of his father decades before, killed because Carl had refused to say "sir" to a white man. After a scene in which Mr. Ray begs his dead father to rise and see him go to college, a friend who was at the theater that night in 1999 leaned over and whispered: "Did you know about this?" Ms. Ray shook her head no. She didn't even think it was odd, she explained recently in an interview. "I guess I'd grown accustomed to the silence." At first it was only on stage that Mr. Ray, now 60, could give voice to his experience. Recently that story has been made into a documentary by Chike C. Nwoffiah, a filmmaker and executive director of the Oriki Theater, a nonprofit community theater here in Silicon Valley. Called "A Killing in Choctaw: The Power of Forgiveness," after the Alabama county where Mr. Ray was born, the film had its premiere last month at the Montgomery Theater here. Explaining why he was moved to make the documentary, Mr. Nwoffiah said, "It's an important enough story that it needs to get out there." That story began in Butler, Ala., on Sept. 6, 1962, when Carl was 18 and preparing to leave for the Tuskegee Institute to major in engineering. With his bags packed, he and a cousin shot off firecrackers near his house. The echoing booms attracted their neighbor, Bill Carlisle, who pulled up in his pickup and blasted the boys with angry questions. After Carl replied with a series of yeses and nos, Mr. Carlisle asked if Carl didn't know that he should say "yes, sir" and "no, sir" to a white man. "No," Carl said. Mr. Carlisle knocked him to the ground and pulled out a knife. "I was looking straight in his eyes," Mr. Ray says in the film, remembering the moment. "Just before he plunged the knife in my throat, he stopped." Mr. Carlisle rose, Mr. Ray recalled, returned to his truck and drove away. Carl went home, and with his father, George, waited. "I knew Bill was coming. My daddy knew Bill was coming," Mr. Ray says in the documentary. George Ray moved his family next door to a relative's house, and then pushed the television set onto the porch. Father and son sat outside watching "Douglas Edwards With the News" while they waited. Carl Ray says he remembers the crunch of the truck tires as Mr. Carlisle arrived. After angry words and a scuffle, Mr. Carlisle cocked his .45 automatic. In a segment of his show, which is part of the documentary, Carl Ray slowly re-enacts the events: "Each time the bullet hit, Daddy's body would flinch. The dust particles from his clothes began to float up and mix with the smoke from the gun barrel. Bill continued to fire. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Daddy falls in slow motion. He takes his last breath." "When I saw his body at the church," Mr. Ray says in the film, "reality set in. When they took him outside and put him in the ground, I began a nightmare that lasted a lifetime." For the documentary Mr. Ray returned to the Alabama courthouse where Mr. Carlisle was tried. "It was like a one-day circus come to town," Mr. Ray recalls as he sits on the witness stand retelling what happened some four decades earlier. Joe Thompson, Mr. Carlisle's defense attorney, accused Carl Ray of murdering his father. Mr. Ray impersonates Mr. Thompson: "You killed your daddy because you don't know how to talk to white people! If you knew how to talk to white people he would still be alive. Isn't that so?" "No, sir," Mr. Ray said. "Damn uppity negra," Mr. Thompson said to the judge and jury. At intervals Mr. Nwoffiah was so overcome that the camera trembles. "As a director," he said in an interview, "you wonder at what point do you stop? Mr. Ray always said: 'Keep going. We have to get through this.' " Mr. Ray recalled blacks sitting upstairs in the courthouse crying as if the trial were a funeral, while downstairs whites laughed. The jury found Mr. Carlisle guilty of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced him to nine years in prison. Although the state has no record of Mr. Carlisle's having served any time, Mr. Ray's oldest brother, Lindsey, and Mike Dale, a former Butler resident who knew the Carlisle family, said he had heard that Mr. Carlisle served less than a year. Mr. Ray said that he has always felt responsible for his father's death, and worried that his siblings blamed him as well. He suffered from severe depression and nightmares. For years he told no one what had happened. He felt "a silent scream," he said. His wife, Brenda Hampton-Ray, learned of her husband's history 10 years ago, when she came across an old clipping about the killing. "He had this facade for so many years," Ms. Hampton-Ray says in the documentary. "We really didn't know who the real husband and real father was." Despite his troubles, Mr. Ray graduated from Tuskegee, then began working as an engineer at the Lockheed Corporation in California. Then this haunted man, who as a child had used humor to ward off bullies, decided to become a comedian. The documentary blends portions of his show with Mr. Ray's commentary and interviews with others. At one point a split screen shows a thinner Mr. Ray darting onstage, wowing a Southern California crowd with his comedy. On the other half of the screen, Mr. Ray's old, sad eyes barely move: "You walk back off that stage," he says, "you walk back into that prison where all the demons are waiting for you." Mr. Ray began finding his voice in 1998 when an exhibition of civil rights photos from the Smithsonian Institution were displayed at the San Jose Museum of Art, and an official there who knew Mr. Ray was a comedian from Alabama asked him to speak about the civil rights era there. "She didn't really know what she was getting," Mr. Ray said recently. Among those who listened was Tommy J. Fulcher Jr., president of Economic and Social Opportunities Inc., a nonprofit organization in the area. Mr. Fulcher told Mr. Ray that his story was more moving than all the famous photos from the civil rights exhibition. He made Mr. Ray an offer: Mr. Fulcher would back a one-man play written and acted by Mr. Ray. A year later, Mr. Ray was telling his story onstage. Since then Mr. Ray has traveled the country, performing his play before college audiences and in community theaters. Wanting to make a documentary, he searched for the right filmmaker. He contacted Mr. Nwoffiah after seeing his 2000 documentary about a black hospital, "A Jewel in History." With no financing, Mr. Ray raised $150,000 himself. Amelia, one of his five children, wrote the accompanying music and designed the Web site, www.carlraye.com. Mr. Nwoffiah said he plans to submit "A Killing in Choctaw" to film festivals and show it at community theaters and colleges. No New York showings have been scheduled yet. Theaters in Choctaw County probably won't be too eager to show it though, said Tommy Campbell, the editor and publisher of The Choctaw Sun, who knows both the Carlisle and Ray families. "This is not the South of the 1960's anymore," he said. Residents "would just like to let it alone,'' he said. Mr. Ray wanted to expose what happened 42 years ago, but he was not quite ready to watch the documentary. During the premiere he stood silently in the back of the theater, seeing snippets of his life, before fleeing outside. 2. [The play] A KILLING IN CHOCKTAW Performed by: Carl Ray Directed by: Ann Johnson http://www.carlraye.com/story.shtml "A Killing In Choctaw" is a one-man, two-act play written and performed by Carl Ray. The play is about his life growing up in Alabama. In 1962, while being questioned by a white man, Carl responded by saying "yes" and "no," instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the customary response when addressing white people. Carl was severely beaten for being disrespectful. An hour later, that man went to Carl's home and shot his Father eight times as Carl looked on. The play deals with the years following the tragedy, beginning with the trial, in which Carl was blamed for his Father's death because he did not know how to respect whites. It was suggested to the court that Carl be taken to the Mississippi State Line and thrown out of the state of Alabama, and not allowed back until he knew how to talk to white people. After the trial, the traumatized and guilt-ridden 18-year old was taken to Tuskegee Institute where four faculty members spent a year counseling him through nervous breakdowns and depression. Due to shock, Carl had shut down and refused to talk. He remained in a zombified state. As a result of the incident, Carl developed three different personalities. One of the personalities was prone to blackouts and violent behavior. Carl graduated from Tuskegee in Electrical Engineering and worked for thirteen years in the Aerospace Industry before pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. On the surface, Carl appeared to be a normal, successful individual. After 22 years of trying to manage his secret of his Father's death, his states of depression, guilt, and multiple personalities, Carl was still suffering. In 1984, Carl met a man who talked to him about the power of forgiveness. Carl attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life -- a day of freedom from his self-imposed prison. In the play, Carl takes the audience through his personal agony of being humiliated in a Jim Crow court trial to being locked in a hotel room and being harassed by eight members of the Klan, the night before George Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama to keep black students out; he gives you a peek into the struggles of being a polio victim attending grade school; how his Father's killer became his imaginary enemy and friend; the nurturing environment at Tuskegee Institute, his changes in careers -- from engineer to taxi driver to stand-up comedian -- and more. 3. "A KILLING IN CHOCTAW": A WALK IN THE SHOES OF CARL RAY By Joe Aytch City Flight News (San Jose, CA) August 1999 http://www.carlraye.com/walkinshoes.shtml SAN JOSE -- "Why must we suffer? Why are we here? God I'm not complaining, I'm just asking why . . ." pleads Comedian/Actor Carl ray at the end of his one-man play "A Killing in Choctaw." "A Killing in Choctaw" is a biography that chronicles the incredible struggle to success of a young Black man from Alabama after witnessing the brutal murder of his father in 1962, and how forgiveness changed his life. This particular young person happened to be named Carl Ray. But he or she could have been the child of a lynching victim, or a relative of the 200 to 300 killed during the Oklahoma Race riots of 1921, or one of the people beaten or murdered during the Civil Rights movement. It's a play that demonstrates the essence of African American theatre. It's Our Story, told as only we can tell it. From Jim Crow to status quo -- it's a drama, and documentary. It's a horrendous family tragedy, an abject lesson on racism in America, and its sprinkled with the topical down-home humor that Carl Ray is known for. CARL RAY'S JOURNEY Not only did 18-year old Carl witness the murder of his father -- he was left feeling responsible. "All because I didn't say 'sir' to a white man," says Carl, referring to an encounter he had with Bill Carlisle, a white neighbor, earlier that fateful day. "Don't you know you're supposed to say sir to a white man?" demands an angry Carlisle when Carl responded with yes or no answers to the man's questioning on September 6, 1962. After beating Carl to the ground for being uppity, the angry man later followed the battered youth home. There, in front of Carl and his family, Carlisle argued, then emptied a 45-caliber gun into the chest of George Ray. The subsequent trial was a sham. Even so, the trial of Bill Carlisle was considered by many to be the first time a white man was sentenced for killing a black man in that part of Alabama. Attempting to put the past behind him, after attending Tuskegee Institute, Carl went on to 13 successful years as an engineer in the aerospace industry. He retired in 1980 to pursue his dream of being a stand-up comic. He went to comedy school in San Francisco, and began touring the country performing at colleges and comedy clubs. Eventually, he recorded an album in 1989, and hosted "The Carl Ray Comedy Show" on cable TV. He also continued to perform on TV and in comedy clubs throughout the country. Carl is also a successful motivational speaker, a husband going on 20 years, and a father of five. Still, others know him for his very successful Black College Tour that for 12 years has taken dozens of college bound Black youth on tours of Black Colleges. Back in Butler, Alabama he was known as a smallish child with polio, often referred to as that "flicted kid". A young Carl used humor to disarm school bullies. Others may still think he's the uppity colored boy who caused the death of his father, as he was portrayed during the trial of Bill Carlisle. "People don't know the aftermath of the time of survival. I felt guilty [responsible]," says Carl Ray today. "It ate away at me and did a lot of damage. There were many years of turmoil." THE PLAY Last year, the San Jose Museum hosted a display of approximately 75 pictures on loan from the Smithsonian documenting the Civil Rights Movement. Carl Ray and several others served as tour guides at the exhibit, sharing their stories before the tour in hopes of giving the pictures more meaning. After one particular tour, Tommy Fulcher, Jr., Founder/President of the Economic & Social Opportunity (ESO), approached Carl and suggested he do a play based on his life. Fulcher graciously offered to assist with the financing. Carl sat down and began to write. Then he enlisted the aid of local Actress/Director Ann Johnson, President of the Board of Directors for the San Jose Multicultural Actors Guild. Ann, best known for her work with San Jose's Tabia African American Theatre Ensemble, has over 15 years of directing and acting credits. "Ann knew how to put my story into a play form," says Carl. "The sections were broken up and staged. She put an order to it, a flow." Although Ann had directed five plays previously, "A Killing in Choctaw" presented a different set of challenges. "Initially it was just one big story," says Ann. "I had to have an understanding of what it meant to Carl, then visualize and stage it, getting what he wanted and getting what was good for the audience. He really was still dealing with a lot of [emotional] stuff during the whole process . . . [it was] a way of working towards healing." About the comedy portions of the play she adds, "Yes we had to show his suffering, but we knew people would come expecting to see Carl Ray the comedian. We used the comedy to make people comfortable." The play may be good for the Ray family. A family still struggling to understand why. It may be good for all to see, especially in a nation that continues to be confounded by the destructive nature of bigotry. Look for [a] . . . showing of "A Killing In Choctaw" . . . and prepare to have what promises to be one of your best theatrical experiences in years. 4. [The documentary] "A KILLING IN CHOCTAW" Directed by: Chike Nwoffiah "A Killing In Choctaw" is a documentary based on the one-man, two-act play written and performed by Carl Ray. The play is about his life growing up in Alabama. In 1962, while being questioned by a white man, Carl responded by saying "yes" and "no," instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the customary response when addressing white people. Carl was severely beaten for being disrespectful. An hour later, that man went to Carl's home and shot his Father eight times as Carl looked on. "A Killing In Choctaw" is an enthralling documentary on Ray's life and how the dreadful incident of 1962 defined his life and held him prisoner in his own skin for over 20 years. Ray's compelling story comes alive under Nwoffiah's masterful direction. Nwoffiah effectively blends narration, reenactment, archival footage, and interviews with actual witnesses of the murder and trial participants. The documentary takes us back to the 1960s and sets the social context that bred many such horrific crimes. We then follow the subsequent trauma, depression, and denial that young Ray suffered and endured for over 20 years until he met a man in 1984 that taught him about the power of forgiveness. Ray attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life and a day of freedom from his self imposed prison. "A Killing In Choctaw is a haunting awakening to the affects of America's age-long racial injustice," said Nwoffiah. "It is a documentary that celebrates the triumph of light over darkness." Carl graduated from Tuskegee in Electrical Engineering and worked for thirteen years in the Aerospace Industry before pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. On the surface, Carl appeared to be a normal, successful individual. After 22 years of trying to manage his secret of his Father's death, his states of depression, guilt, and multiple personalities, Carl was still suffering. 1984, Carl met a man who talked to him about the power of forgiveness. Carl attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life - a day of freedom from his self-imposed prison. In the court, Carl takes the audience through his personal agony of being humiliated in a Jim Crow court trial; the nurturing environment at Tuskegee Institute, his changes in careers - from engineer to taxi driver to stand-up comedian - and more. For production and distribution information, contact Chike Nwoffiah at ChikeCN@aol.com 5. Press Release: Art/Entertainment, Education, Features, Event Calendars CARL RAY'S SPELLBINDING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MOVIE DOCUMENTARY ** Premieres September 19th at Montgomery Theater, San Jose, CA; Film Adaptation of Ray's Critically-acclaimed Stage Production ** --Carl Ray carried scars from witnessing his father's brutal 1962 murder in segregated Choctaw County, Alabama; a white man's retaliation for 18-year-old Ray's having responded to the man's questioning by saying "yes" and "no" instead of "yes, sir" and "no, sir," which were the customary responses when addressing white people. In 1984 -- more than twenty years after the incident -- Ray met a man from whom he learned about the power of forgiveness. August 10, 2004 http://www.carlraye.com/docpr.shtml Thousands of viewers have raved about the critically acclaimed autobiographical play by and about comedian, activist and educator Carl Ray. Della Productions now brings a candid and soul stirring documentary adaptation of Ray's spellbinding play "A Killing in Choctaw" directed by award winning filmmaker Chike Nwoffiah, co-founder and artistic director of the celebrated Oriki Theater. While being questioned by a white man in 1962, in the small town of Butler, Choctaw County, Alabama, an 18-year-old Ray responded by saying "yes" and "no" instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the customary response when addressing white people. He was severely beaten for being disrespectful. An hour later, the man went to Ray's home and shot his father eight times as Ray looked helplessly on. "A Killing In Choctaw" will premiere on Sunday, September 19, 2004 at Montgomery Theater, 291 So. Market Street, San Jose, Ca. Tickets for the 4:00 p.m. premiere are $30. Tickets may be purchased online at www.urbanevents.com or by calling 408-668-2578 or 408-259-6516. "A Killing In Choctaw" is an enthralling documentary on Ray's life and how the dreadful incident of 1962 defined his life and held him prisoner in his own skin for over 20 years. Ray's compelling story comes alive under Nwoffiah's masterful direction. Nwoffiah effectively blends narration, reenactment, archival footage, and interviews with actual witnesses of the murder and trial participants. The documentary takes us back to the 1960s and sets the social context that bred many such horrific crimes. We then follow the subsequent trauma, depression, and denial that young Ray suffered and endured for over 20 years until he met a man in 1984 that taught him about the power of forgiveness. Ray attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life and a day of freedom from his self-imposed prison. "A Killing In Choctaw is a haunting awakening to the affects of America's age-long racial injustice," said Nwoffiah. "It is a documentary that celebrates the triumph of light over darkness." ABOUT CARL RAY: In 1967, Carl Ray graduated from Tuskegee Institute with a B.S. Degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he traveled to California to begin a career in the Aerospace Industry. Early in his career, he was sidetracked by a yearning to perform stand-up comedy. Carl Ray started a Youth Opportunity Program in East Palo Alto in 1968; began recruiting youth to attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities in 1970; then undertook sponsoring tours to the colleges. Ray continues to host Spring and Fall tours to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). To date, he has chaperoned more than 2,000 students on HBCU tours. In 1988, Ray, together with his wife, founded Courtland Esteem School -- a private school in San Jose, California -- where they continue to educate young African American children in grades one through six. Carl Ray has performed "A Killing in Choctaw" live nearly 100 times at theaters, churches, colleges, museums and other venues throughout the United States. To learn more about Ray's fascinating biography, please visit www.carlraye.com ### MEDIA CONTACT: PR, et Cetera, Inc. -- Toni Beckham -- 408-499-3664 -- Toni@PRetCetera.com 6. ALABAMIAN SPREADS MESSAGE OF FORGIVENESS WITH DOCUMENTARY By Casandra Andrews Mobile Register (Mobile, AL) October 3, 2004 http://www.carlraye.com/candrews.shtml SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Even before Carl Ray appeared on screen, his voice reverberated through the Montgomery Theater here, mimicking the sounds of gun fire that repeatedly pierced his father's chest. "Pop! Pop! Pop!" he shouted as some in the audience gasped, then grimaced at the cruel image his words conjured. "Pop! Pop! Pop!" Then silence. Forty-two years ago, an 18-year-old Ray watched as his father's body was riddled with bullets in Choctaw County because the youth hadn't addressed a white neighbor as "sir." After the shots rang out, witnesses said the shooter, William "Bill" Carlisle, lowered his .45-caliber handgun, stumbled to his truck, then drove away. George Ray, a 62-year-old farmer, lay dying in the yard of a friend's home near Butler. That moment, and much of Ray's life since, has become the subject of a documentary that premiered here in late September, thousands of miles from the spot where the engineer-turned-comedian-turned-actor-turned-activist grew up. Despite rain and unseasonably cool conditions, several hundred people packed into the theater in Silicon Valley to see the film chronicling Ray's pain, plight and path to forgiveness. Speckled with comedic as well as somber moments, the autobiographical documentary, "A Killing in Choctaw, the Power of Forgiveness," follows Ray's life through a series of interviews with friends, family and journalists. It also includes clips from the one-man play, "A Killing in Choctaw," that Ray began performing five years ago. Now 60, he's presented the play nearly 100 times at community theaters and college campuses across the country. The production chronicles his life growing up in a racially divided Alabama, including his father's 1962 death and the years he spent blaming himself for the slaying. The play, as well as the film adaptation, details the strange set of circumstances that led Ray to forgive the man who killed his father. The documentary digs deeper and brings viewers into Ray's struggle for peace. "As I was watching, I was thinking it was a personal story, but it really does reach out to other people," said Orpheus Crutchfield, 37, from Hercules, Calif. "It's a horrible story, but it's a universal story." Crutchfield, who literally sat on the edge of his seat through most of the film, met Ray a few years back at a conference on race relations. "I think it's going to Sundance," he said, referring to the independent film festival in Utah started by actor Robert Redford. For Crutchfield, the film's message was clear: "We all think we have problems, but they can be overcome." Ray is living proof of that, he said. The film opens with Ray describing his past in a monologue interspersed with photos from his childhood. The youngest of five children, he was born two months premature. He contracted polio at age 4. Ray said he was known as "that 'flicted boy" throughout his elementary school years. Ray grew up just outside the tiny town of Butler, Ala., a spot close to nowhere in particular, about 120 miles north of Mobile. Fate had divided the population about evenly between black and white there, and the state of Alabama, by custom and law, had guaranteed privilege for only one side. Ray's parents, who never made it much past sixth grade, saw to it that their children all went to college. It wasn't a subject for debate in the Ray household. As the youngest, Ray was the last to leave home. On Sept. 6, 1962, a teenage Ray was packing his bags for Tuskegee Institute, about 150 miles east in Tuskegee. He found some old fireworks in a footlocker as he rummaged around, he said. In his documentary, Ray describes what happened next: Done with his packing, Ray and a younger cousin went out to a nearby dirt road to light the fireworks. They weren't long without company. Carlisle rambled up in his truck and asked them about what he thought was gunfire. Ray explained that the loud noise was just fireworks, answering the man's questions with "yes" and "no." Because Ray didn't respond with "yes, sir" and "no, sir," as was the custom then in much of the rural South, Carlisle violently beat him, stopping just short of cutting his throat, Ray said. For reasons Ray still doesn't understand, the man spared his life, climbed back in his pickup and roared away. Ray, bruised and bleeding, went home and told his family what happened. About an hour later, Ray and his parents went down the road to a friend's home to watch the evening news. Instead of staying inside, George Ray placed the television in the doorway and sat outside to watch. It wasn't long before Carlisle came calling. The white man told George Ray his son needed to leave town, explaining that he needed to be taught how to talk to white folks. The elder Ray said his son was leaving for college in just a few days. George Ray's words only seemed to enrage Carlisle. The white man slammed his pistol into George Ray's head more than once. Bleeding, the black man fell into a flower bed. Trying to protect his father, Ray picked up an empty glass bottle and shattered it against Carlisle's head. That's when the white man began firing his weapon at George Ray. Originally charged with the murder of George Ray, Carlisle was convicted of manslaughter in 1963 in circuit court in Butler, and sentenced to nine years. All of the jurors were white. Ray thinks the case marked the first time a white man was sent to jail for killing a black man in Choctaw County. Nine years later, Carlisle, who by then was out of jail, was shot in the chest and killed by his father-in-law in during an argument in 1973, according to a news story in the *Choctaw Advocate*, a weekly newspaper. Two years ago, while filming the movie about his life, Ray walked up the worn steps inside the Choctaw County Courthouse, then took a seat in the wooden witness box where he'd been questioned some 40 years earlier. It wasn't long before the past became the present. "I'm sitting here and he's ripping me apart," Ray recalled in the film of the day he testified in Carlisle's trial. As the camera moved in closer, Ray looked down, then wiped at his cheeks. Many in the audience at the film premiere did the same. "I'd never seen so much hatred," Ray said, looking into the camera again after a few moments, then gesturing to where the all-white spectators sat on the first floor of the courtroom. "It was like, how could somebody hate like that? I'll never understand. It was just a sea of hate." His older brother, Lindsey, who lives in Montgomery, said the treatment Ray received at the trial was "a lynching without a rope" in the documentary. Ray said Carlisle's attorney, who is now deceased, blamed him for his father's death. "In my mind I had subconsciously accepted that fact," he said of the way he held himself responsible for the killing. Bracing for Carlisle's trial and staying in school proved difficult. After dropping out of Tuskegee, Ray eventually went back to college. Before leaving Alabama in 1967, he had a bachelor's degree from Tuskegee and a job in engineering in San Jose. But comedy tugged at him, even with a wife and five children to support. He broke into the comedy scene at northern California clubs in the late 1970s. By 1984, he was in Los Angeles, working comedy stints and driving a cab for the money and because he liked being around people. One day he picked up a man in Hollywood and dropped him off at the airport. About a week later, he got a call to pick up someone at a hotel. It was the same man, country songwriter Wil Hinkson. Within weeks, he found himself driving Hinkson for a third time. The cabbie and his paying rider were amazed at the coincidences. As they talked during their third meeting, a news item on the radio sparked a solemn turn in their conversation. Out of the blue, Ray said, the songwriter started talking about forgiveness. Ray offered bits of his own life story, explaining his lingering anger. The white man told Ray to simply forgive Carlisle. It was then, Ray said, that he stated he forgave Carlisle, if for no other reason than to silence Hinkson. "After I said the words," Ray says in the film, "it was as if I had been instantly moved from one planet to another planet." While much of the anger and pain had vanished, Ray says in the film he was still left with emotional scars: "There's no such thing as closure. You get to different levels of peace." After more than two years of performing the story of his life for audiences around the country, the play's subject matter was taking its toll. Ray said that 2001 was one of the toughest years he's ever endured, comparing the time period to when he first started college just after his father's death. Things got so bad that his wife, Brenda, tried to make him stop performing the one-man show. "I felt like if I didn't do the play, Bill would win," Ray said. "I'd been in a battle with him all my life." Eventually, he sought help from a psychologist. "The forgiveness part freed me," Ray said, "but it didn't get rid of my depression. I forgave Bill for killing my father but I still had my own guilt and I was trapped. The hardest part to do was to forgive myself." A few years back, looking to elevate his play to another level, Ray went in search of a director. After attending a film festival in California, he met filmmaker Chike Nowffiah, who had recently completed a documentary about the closure of black hospitals in America. The two hit it off. As producer of the documentary, Ray spent more than two years working with Nowffiah to make the 90-minute adaptation. Ray accompanied the director and a film crew to Alabama several times, interviewing those who lent perspective to the production, including Choctaw County residents, his guidance counselor at Tuskegee and some of his siblings. Ray sold shares in the production as a way to maintain control over the finished product. Another Alabama resident who took part in the film was Hollis Curl, a former newspaper reporter in Choctaw County who arrived on the scene of the shooting shortly after it happened. Curl, who is white, was interviewed at length in the film about what he saw that day and his feelings about segregation. "I thought the races were getting along pretty good," Curl says in the film. "I thought that separate but equal worked for me." The term "separate but equal" meant that blacks didn't eat in the same restaurant dining rooms as whites, didn't use the same bathrooms, didn't share the same schools. Ray's plan is to enter the project at various film festivals across the country. He also is working to market a shorter version of the documentary to cable television companies and universities. Ray said he would like to tour with the film, much like he has done with the play, introducing audiences to his life story and path to forgiveness. Mike Dale, a former Choctaw County resident who went to high school in Butler during the turbulent 1960s, knew one of Carlisle's sons. "I think it's good to remember all this stuff," said Dale, who now lives in Michigan and attended the film premiere. "The world's a better place than it was in Choctaw County in 1964. It's a better place and people are better than they were." In the Montgomery Theater's lobby in San Jose, famous black-and-white images from the South's segregated past sat on large easels for the premiere. News photographs of Ku Klux Klansmen, a burning cross and a group crossing a bridge in Selma set the scene for Ray's documentary. Inside the 500-seat arena, blacks and whites sat side by side to see the film. Rick Callender, president of the San JosSilicon Valley branch of the NAACP, addressed the audience before the presentation. "It's not only the story of one man," Callender said. "It is our collective story. It's the story of our strength." After a standing ovation at the end of the film, a beaming Ray took the stage, chest out and thumbs through his belt loops. He was ready to answer questions. There were many. People who traveled from as far away as Michigan and Mississippi wanted to know more about the man who shot his father. They wanted to know what became of the lawyer who blamed Ray for his father's death. They also wanted to reassure him that the shooting wasn't his fault. "If white America could change places with you, what do you think they would have learned?" someone eventually asked. Ray's answer was immediate. "It's hell being a black man in America," he said. "Should we forget?" a man from the balcony wondered aloud. Ray, along with others in the audience, responded almost in unison: "We should forgive but we should never forget." It's the kind of dialogue Ray hopes to spark in communities across the country. "We have to share our problems," he said. "We have to talk to each other." 7. [Carl Ray's biography] http://www.carlraye.com/bio2.shtml In 1967, Carl graduated from Tuskegee Institute with a B.S. Degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation he traveled to California to begin a career in the Aerospace Industry. During the morning commutes, he listened to comedians on the "Freeway Funnies" morning show and enjoyed it immensely. After hearing a commercial for a comedy school, he enrolled in a comedy class in San Francisco. After two years of honing his comedy skills in comedy clubs in the Bay Area clubs, Carl left his engineering career for comedy, and headed to Hollywood. Upon arriving in Hollywood, Carl found himself competing with hundreds of aspiring entertainers searching for part-time employment to support their dreams. Thus, Carl became a taxi driver with Celebrity Cabs. His dream began to materialize, and four years later he was working in comedy clubs throughout the country. In 1989, he was host and producer of his own cable television show, "The Carl Raye Comedy Show." In 1990, while working the college circuit, Carl discovered he had a talent for public speaking. He added motivational speaking to his resumé. It was a motivational speaking engagement that led him to performing the one-man play about his life. After speaking at the San Jose Museum of Art about his life and the Civil Rights Movement, he was approached by one of the guests in the audience. The guest shared a vision that entered his mind while Carl was speaking. The vision was a one-man play about Carl's experiences. Carl was made an offer he couldn't refuse. If he would agree to perform his life story, the guest would finance the production. That was the birth of the play, "A Killing In Choctaw." 8. [Booking information] FOR BOOKINGS CONTACT: Della Productions Dellap44@aol.com 408.206.1768 - phone 408.259.6516 - phone/fax ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 13) Dear Readers Here is the digest for October 21, 2004 1-Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies of wounds sustained on Wednesday 2-231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in Khan Younis in four year 1- Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies of wounds sustained on Wednesday Saed Bannoura -IMEMC & Agencies, October 21, 2004 An Israeli military source claimed that two residents were shot dead overnight near Nahal Oz settlement in the Gaza Strip, in addition to another resident who died of wounds sustained on Wednesday in Jabalia refuge camp. The source claimed that soldiers spotted two activists crawling towards a restricted zone, near the border fence, under cover of fog, and shot them dead, suspecting that they intended to carry out shootings in settlement blocs near the fence. Meanwhile, Dr. Moaweya Hassanein, head of the Emergency Unit in the Ministry of Health, said that Mohammad Zaki Abu Hliyyil, 31 years old, died of critical wounds sustained on Wednesday, after soldiers fired several shells at a number of homes in Jabalia refugee camp killing four residents and wounding four others. The Army continued its military operations in several areas in the Gaza Strip despite their claims that 'Operation Days of Penitence' had officially ended. Soldiers shelled several areas in the Gaza Strip especially in Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, and Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, soldiers shot dead a youth near Salah Ad-Deen Street, in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, after claiming that two men had attempted to place an explosive charge near the Egyptian Borders. According to the army, a third activist managed to escape. Moreover, also on Wednesday, in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, soldiers fired several shells at homes in Tal Zo'rob area, south of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip killing one youth and causing damages to tens of homes, in addition to raiding Beit Hanoun, in the north of the Gaza Strip, and firing several shells causing large scale damages on Wednesday at dawn. In addition, UNRWA said on Tuesday, that the number of homes demolished in the latest military operation in Jabalia refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip, exceeded 90 homes. more than 140 residents were killed, 30 among them children, and approximately 400 residents were wounded. 2- 231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in Khan Younis in four years Saed Bannoura -IMEMC & Agencies, October 21, 2004, 14:12 The Public Relations Office at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis revealed that soldiers killed more than 231 Palestinians, mainly children and women, in Khan Younis, since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada, in September 30, 2000. The office said in a report published on Thursday that soldiers killed 321 Palestinians from Khan Younis in four years, in addition to hundreds of residents who sustained different kinds of injuries among the residents including children and elderly. The published report revealed that more the 88 children were killed, 199 under the age of 39, and 34 residents between the ages of 40-70. Moreover, the number of wounded residents exceeded 413 residents; most of them sustained moderate and critical wounds; most of the injuries were to the head and upper parts of the body. The report of the Hospital revealed that 1701 Palestinians were admitted to surgery in several branches of the hospital, and that soldiers shot wounded four medics, three ambulance drivers, and three administrators, in addition to destroying three ambulances which belongs to the hospital. It is worth mentioning that soldiers lately increased the military attacks and violations against the medical teams, and shelled the hospital causing damages in the reception Desk, Physiotherapy Section, Surgery Branch, Kidney Section, in addition to other branches in the hospital. The damages were estimated with more than one million Dollars. <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://asia.groups.yahoo.com/group/Marxists/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: Marxists-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://asia.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 14) Return of the Class Struggle: Hotel Workers National Battle, One We Can't Afford to Lose By Gene Pepi craigslist.org/cgi-bin/search?areaID=1&subAreaID=1&query=san+francisco&cat=o ff&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1000&minSqft=600&neighborhood= On September 29, 2004, 1400 San Francisco hotel workers (members of UNITE-HERE Local 2) hit the streets at four of fourteen major San Francisco hotels for a two-week strike. Two days later, the other ten hotels in the San Francisco Major Employers Group (SFMEG-who bargain together against UNITE-HERE Local 2) responded by locking out the other 2600 San Francisco UNITE-HERE members covered under the SFMEG contract. A week earlier, Local 2 members had authorized a strike by a 97% vote of more than 3000 members. As of September 23, 2004, in cities across the US, over 14,000 hotel and casino workers had passed resolutions to authorize strikes by margins and numbers similar to those in San Francisco. And on October 1, 2004, 10,000 union casino workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, struck with massive picket lines against seven of the twelve major Atlantic City casinos. This is the start of a new wave of class struggle, one we should win. Hotel union labor contracts began to expire last June for 2800 Los Angeles workers and in August for San Francisco hotel workers. Contracts have expired for casino workers at the 12 major Atlantic City gaming palaces, 12 major hotels in Washington, DC and on the casino boats and casino facilities in cities of Indiana: Gary, Michigan City and East Chicago. Across the country in every hotel, casino, and union restaurant UNITE- HERE members face similar issues. The bean counters at the hotel, restaurant and gambling conglomerates want workers to pick up the increased costs of healthcare for their families and retirees, to hold the line on pension contributions, and to accept increased workloads without increases in wages. They absolutely do not want to have major hotel contracts expire in 2006, the common expiration date that UNITE-HERE members and leaders are fighting for. The 2006 expiration date would align the contract negotiations for somewhere near 50,000 to 70,000 hotel workers from New York City, up and down the East Coast, through Chicago and the Midwest, up and down the West Coast, and across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. It also reflects the merger of the unions that now make up UNITE- HERE, possible changes in the leadership of the AFL-CIO union confederation and the massive restructuring and consolidation of the hotel, restaurant and gambling industries as represented by the conglomerates that own, run and franchise what is now a multi- billion dollar industry. The hotel and casino conglomerates adamantly oppose the 2006 common contract expiration date, as reflected in the San Francisco lockout and "bad-faith bargaining" legal action by SFMEG taken against UNITE-HERE Local 2. Merger Mania On July 8, 2004, two existing AFL-CIO affiliated unions merged to form UNITE-HERE. They were the Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE). The combined unions now number almost 500,000 active members and 400,000 retirees throughout North America. More than half of the current active members are women and the combined union has organized more than 100,000 new workers in the last five years. Three things preceded this union merger. UNITE itself was created by the merger of two unions: the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), both famous for their struggles in textile manufacturing and US politics. However in the years since the 1950s, the two unions have lost a combined total of 850,000 members, as clothing and textile manufacturing jobs were exported from the US. By 2004 their combined membership totaled only 180,000. The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) was originally formed in the 1890s. Its membership peaked in the 1980s. Just before September 11th, 2001 its membership was 272,000. Following the 2001 terrorist attacks union membership dropped to 180,000, as much of the tourism industry collapsed. The collapse was aggravated by the bursting of the 1990s economic bubble. However by 2004 HERE membership had grown again to 260,000. To support its call for the 2006 expiration date, UNITE-HERE points out that in the last two decades, hotel lodging companies have undergone a major consolidation. Hotels that used to be locally owned are now parts of huge transnational corporations. According to information provided by the union, 75% of UNITE- HERE Local 2 workers in San Francisco are employed by national chains (like Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental, Marriott and Starwood). These 5 transnational conglomerates together run 60% of San Francisco hotels. Local companies run only 5% of San Francisco hotels. The largest conglomerate, InterContinental, owns or franchises 3500 hotels in 100 countries and in San Francisco operates the Mark Hopkins hotel and others. In 2003 InterContinental reported an operating profit of more than one-half billion dollars. In a like manner, in 2003 the Hilton Corporation reported over $160 million profits on $4 billion in revenues, Marriott reported $500 million profits on $9 billion in revenues, and Starwood reported over $309 million profits on $3.8 billion in revenues. Power in 2006 On Friday, August 13th, Hyatt Chicago Regency hotel workers marched into management offices wearing their new red and black "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. They presented managers with a 500-signature petition. Five workers were sent home for wearing the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. On Saturday, August 14th, in the face of 1400 guest check-outs, 82 button wearing hotel workers, including the main kitchen crew and the main luncheon banquet server crew, were sent home when they refused to remove their "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. Food service at the hotel all but collapsed. Management had to scramble to serve food buffet style and serve a VIP luncheon using managers and other hotel staff. On Sunday Hyatt Regency hotel managers asked UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel workers to come back to work and said that it was OK to wear the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. "We sent a message to the hotels in Chicago and the giant corporations that run them that this is a national fight and we are ready for it," Francine Jones, a Hyatt Chicago Room Attendant said. UNITE- HERE Local 2 Vice-president Lamoin Werlein-Jean, told San Francisco news-media reporters that, "We're fighting to build a national movement to unite our brother and sister hotel workers across the country so we may be able to negotiate with more balance with these multinational hotel corporations." Ignacio Ruiz, a food server at the Los Angeles Century Plaza, told an LA reporter that hotel workers had learned from the super-market strike that they need national coordination to win these battles against international hotel chains. UNITE- HERE Local 2 President Mike Casey told us that UNITE- HERE is trying to avoid the problems that UFCW grocery workers in Southern California had with their contracts. Casey also said they are trying to connect with Northern California UFCW Grocery workers and SEIU- represented hospital workers, who face similar issues in their contracts that are expiring and are being negotiated now. Post 911 Recovery The tourism industry suffered an economic blow immediately following the 911 terrorist attacks. That was on top of the economic downturn already taking place. In San Francisco, about one third of union hotel workers were laid off and many of the rest had their work hours reduced. However in the last year, the industry has been experiencing a recovery to levels at or above those of 2001, particularly in San Francisco and New York. In Washington, D.C. both room occupancy and rates have increased in the last year. The Washington Post, reported on September 3, 2004 that Smith Travel Research Inc. states that area hotels reported revenue per room to be up from $75.77 in 2003 to $86.45 in 2004, over a similar time period. This figure is also higher than the same period preceding the terrorist attacks in 2001. However employment levels in the hotels have not kept pace with increased workloads. Fewer workers are now doing more work than they did in 2001. As Mike Casey, President of UNITE- HERE Local 2 puts it, "We won't allow the hotels to balance their books on our backs ..." In San Francisco (and around the country), UNITE-HERE Local 2 is also fighting to defend immigrant workers, arguing that employers should join the union in the fight to change US immigration laws. UNITE-HERE unions are also proposing to increase the hiring rates of black workers, which are underrepresented in the hotel work force. UNITE-HERE Local 2 also has endorsed San Francisco Ballot Initiative F, which would allow non-citizens, with children in public schools, to vote in school board elections. The contracts expiring in San Francisco affect other San Francisco hotels, where contracts will expire soon. Which is why we see SFMEG (and all other hotel employers across the country) proposing increased employee contributions to health insurance costs, meager wage proposals, inadequate pension contributions, and finally, more than anything else, opposition to the 2006 contract expiration date. In fact the fight for the 2006 expiration date is the main reason that negotiations broke down and that UNITE- HERE Local 2 called the strike. In every hotel across the country, if their regular employees strike or employers lock union workers out, hotel managers and executives say they will keep their hotels open. It remains to be seen if they can do this if union workers put up the fight necessary to shut down the hotels despite the use of strikebreakers. Words are cheap. What the striking workers need is massive solidarity. The AFL-CIO and all local Labor Councils and individual unions must help the Hotel Workers with money, food and, more importantly, labor actions such as boycotts of hotel chains and massive support for picket lines. Supporters must enforce the premise that picket lines are not to be crossed. Politicians, especially those running for office, should be put on the spot and in the spotlight. They must speak out in favor of the mostly immigrant strikers and avoid the trap of "mediating" in favor of the hotel owners-as San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom has hinted at doing. On September 29, 2004, 1400 San Francisco hotel workers (members of UNITE-HERE Local 2) hit the streets at four of fourteen major San Francisco hotels for a two-week strike. Two days later, the other ten hotels in the San Francisco Major Employers Group (SFMEG-who bargain together against UNITE-HERE Local 2) responded by locking out the other 2600 San Francisco UNITE-HERE members covered under the SFMEG contract. A week earlier, Local 2 members had authorized a strike by a 97% vote of more than 3000 members. As of September 23, 2004, in cities across the US, over 14,000 hotel and casino workers had passed resolutions to authorize strikes by margins and numbers similar to those in San Francisco. And on October 1, 2004, 10,000 union casino workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, struck with massive picket lines against seven of the twelve major Atlantic City casinos. This is the start of a new wave of class struggle, one we should win. Hotel union labor contracts began to expire last June for 2800 Los Angeles workers and in August for San Francisco hotel workers. Contracts have expired for casino workers at the 12 major Atlantic City gaming palaces, 12 major hotels in Washington, DC and on the casino boats and casino facilities in cities of Indiana: Gary, Michigan City and East Chicago. Across the country in every hotel, casino, and union restaurant UNITE- HERE members face similar issues. The bean counters at the hotel, restaurant and gambling conglomerates want workers to pick up the increased costs of healthcare for their families and retirees, to hold the line on pension contributions, and to accept increased workloads without increases in wages. They absolutely do not want to have major hotel contracts expire in 2006, the common expiration date that UNITE-HERE members and leaders are fighting for. The 2006 expiration date would align the contract negotiations for somewhere near 50,000 to 70,000 hotel workers from New York City, up and down the East Coast, through Chicago and the Midwest, up and down the West Coast, and across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. It also reflects the merger of the unions that now make up UNITE-HERE, possible changes in the leadership of the AFL-CIO union confederation and the massive restructuring and consolidation of the hotel, restaurant and gambling industries as represented by the conglomerates that own, run and franchise what is now a multi-billion dollar industry. The hotel and casino conglomerates adamantly oppose the 2006 common contract expiration date, as reflected in the San Francisco lockout and "bad-faith bargaining" legal action by SFMEG taken against UNITE-HERE Local 2. Merger Mania On July 8, 2004, two existing AFL-CIO affiliated unions merged to form UNITE-HERE. They were the Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE). The combined unions now number almost 500,000 active members and 400,000 retirees throughout North America. More than half of the current active members are women and the combined union has organized more than 100,000 new workers in the last five years. Three things preceded this union merger. UNITE itself was created by the merger of two unions: the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), both famous for their struggles in textile manufacturing and US politics. However in the years since the 1950s, the two unions have lost a combined total of 850,000 members, as clothing and textile manufacturing jobs were exported from the US. By 2004 their combined membership totaled only 180,000. The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) was originally formed in the 1890s. Its membership peaked in the 1980s. Just before September 11th, 2001 its membership was 272,000. Following the 2001 terrorist attacks union membership dropped to 180,000, as much of the tourism industry collapsed. The collapse was aggravated by the bursting of the 1990s economic bubble. However by 2004 HERE membership had grown again to 260,000. To support its call for the 2006 expiration date, UNITE-HERE points out that in the last two decades, hotel lodging companies have undergone a major consolidation. Hotels that used to be locally owned are now parts of huge transnational corporations. According to information provided by the union, 75% of UNITE-HERE Local 2 workers in San Francisco are employed by national chains (like Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental, Marriott and Starwood). These 5 transnational conglomerates together run 60% of San Francisco hotels. Local companies run only 5% of San Francisco hotels. The largest conglomerate, InterContinental, owns or franchises 3500 hotels in 100 countries and in San Francisco operates the Mark Hopkins hotel and others. In 2003 InterContinental reported an operating profit of more than one-half billion dollars. In a like manner, in 2003 the Hilton Corporation reported over $160 million profits on $4 billion in revenues, Marriott reported $500 million profits on $9 billion in revenues, and Starwood reported over $309 million profits on $3.8 billion in revenues. Power in 2006 On Friday, August 13th, Hyatt Chicago Regency hotel workers marched into management offices wearing their new red and black "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. They presented managers with a 500-signature petition. Five workers were sent home for wearing the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. On Saturday, August 14th, in the face of 1400 guest check-outs, 82 button wearing hotel workers, including the main kitchen crew and the main luncheon banquet server crew, were sent home when they refused to remove their "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. Food service at the hotel all but collapsed. Management had to scramble to serve food buffet style and serve a VIP luncheon using managers and other hotel staff. On Sunday Hyatt Regency hotel managers asked UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel workers to come back to work and said that it was OK to wear the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. "We sent a message to the hotels in Chicago and the giant corporations that run them that this is a national fight and we are ready for it," Francine Jones, a Hyatt Chicago Room Attendant said. UNITE- HERE Local 2 Vice-president Lamoin Werlein-Jean, told San Francisco news-media reporters that, "We're fighting to build a national movement to unite our brother and sister hotel workers across the country so we may be able to negotiate with more balance with these multinational hotel corporations." Ignacio Ruiz, a food server at the Los Angeles Century Plaza, told an LA reporter that hotel workers had learned from the super-market strike that they need national coordination to win these battles against international hotel chains. UNITE- HERE Local 2 President Mike Casey told us that UNITE- HERE is trying to avoid the problems that UFCW grocery workers in Southern California had with their contracts. Casey also said they are trying to connect with Northern California UFCW Grocery workers and SEIU-represented hospital workers, who face similar issues in their contracts that are expiring and are being negotiated now. Post 911 Recovery The tourism industry suffered an economic blow immediately following the 911 terrorist attacks. That was on top of the economic downturn already taking place. In San Francisco, about one third of union hotel workers were laid off and many of the rest had their work hours reduced. However in the last year, the industry has been experiencing a recovery to levels at or above those of 2001, particularly in San Francisco and New York. In Washington, D.C. both room occupancy and rates have increased in the last year. The Washington Post, reported on September 3, 2004 that Smith Travel Research Inc. states that area hotels reported revenue per room to be up from $75.77 in 2003 to $86.45 in 2004, over a similar time period. This figure is also higher than the same period preceding the terrorist attacks in 2001. However employment levels in the hotels have not kept pace with increased workloads. Fewer workers are now doing more work than they did in 2001. As Mike Casey, President of UNITE- HERE Local 2 puts it, "We won't allow the hotels to balance their books on our backs ..." In San Francisco (and around the country), UNITE-HERE Local 2 is also fighting to defend immigrant workers, arguing that employers should join the union in the fight to change US immigration laws. UNITE-HERE unions are also proposing to increase the hiring rates of black workers, which are underrepresented in the hotel work force. UNITE-HERE Local 2 also has endorsed San Francisco Ballot Initiative F, which would allow non-citizens, with children in public schools, to vote in school board elections. The contracts expiring in San Francisco affect other San Francisco hotels, where contracts will expire soon. Which is why we see SFMEG (and all other hotel employers across the country) proposing increased employee contributions to health insurance costs, meager wage proposals, inadequate pension contributions, and finally, more than anything else, opposition to the 2006 contract expiration date. In fact the fight for the 2006 expiration date is the main reason that negotiations broke down and that UNITE-HERE Local 2 called the strike. In every hotel across the country, if their regular employees strike or employers lock union workers out, hotel managers and executives say they will keep their hotels open. It remains to be seen if they can do this if union workers put up the fight necessary to shut down the hotels despite the use of strikebreakers. Words are cheap. What the striking workers need is massive solidarity. The AFL-CIO and all local Labor Councils and individual unions must help the Hotel Workers with money, food and, more importantly, labor actions such as boycotts of hotel chains and massive support for picket lines. Supporters must enforce the premise that picket lines are not to be crossed. Politicians, especially those running for office, should be put on the spot and in the spotlight. They must speak out in favor of the mostly immigrant strikers and avoid the trap of "mediating" in favor of the hotel owners-as San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom has hinted at doing.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Targets of Empire Demonstration Sat November 13
Targets of Empire Demonstration Sat November 13
bayareapalestine Main Page  No matter who wins the election in November, many people will find themselves still struggling to get by because of the actions and inactions of the US government. As people in Palestine and Iraq are killed by US made and funded bombs and bullets, the people of Haiti will be kept from having a democratically elected government, and prevented from trying otherwise. As the US continues to reap havoc in Afghanistan and threaten countries around the globe, people here at home will struggle for housing, healthcare, education and jobs.  The Justice in Palestine coalition has called this demonstration to call attention to these "Targets of Empire" and reassert the importance of the unity between different groups through grassroots struggle. Please save the date and get out the flyer. We are looking for others to endorse and help build the protest with us. Please send your endorsements to info@justiceinpalestine.net and come to the planning meeting this Thursday night at 7.00 at Muddy Waters cafe on Valencia Street near the corner of 16th.  Solidarity!  Josh   * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bayareapalestine/  * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: bayareapalestine-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com  * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2004
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END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW! MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW! WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURS. OCT. 22 & OCT. 28, 7PM, GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303 (NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Oct 21 & Oct 22 - 9th Natl Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation From: rita akayama Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:36:22 -0700 (PDT) From: rita akayama Subject: To: office@october22.org, no1022 , oct22sf@energy-net.org Check out the Calendar of events below. 2) EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT! Stop HR 10 Before Congress Starts a New War on Immigrants! In the past two weeks, the most right-wing Congressmen have tried to sneak horrible anti-immigrant measures past the public. These are not just any bills: Congress has begun its single BIGGEST ATTACK on immigrants in almost a DECADE. 3) Anger Over Tax Cuts as Jobs Leave Towns By TIMOTHY EGAN GALESBURG, Ill. October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/national/20taxes.html?hp&ex=1098331200&en= b5b229e8f0a15ebd&ei=5094&partner=homepage 4) Soldiers fear that they are 'sleeping with the enemy' Adrian Blomfield discovers deep mistrust between American troops and Iraqi soldiers they are training (Filed: 18/10/2004) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/18/wirq218.xml& sSheet=/news/2004/10/18/ixnewstop.html 5) Maritime Worker Monitor #7 October 13, 2004 STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ AND THE WAR ON WORKERS! Join the Million Worker March! (This is a great argument in favor of the MWM and others like it. I felt it was important to pass it along even though it is after the Fact...BW) 6) How Many Iraqis Are Dying? By One Count, 208 in a Week TALLYING THE DEAD By NORIMITSU ONISHI BAGHDAD, Iraq October 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/international/middleeast/19casualties.html ?oref=login&hp 7) Oil Prices Climb Back to the $54 Level By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON October 20, 2004 Filed at 12:07 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Oil-Prices.html 8) Homeless Families Blocked From Seeking U.S. Housing Aid By LESLIE KAUFMAN October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/nyregion/20homeless.html 9) Public University Tuition Is Up Sharply for 2004 By GREG WINTER October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/education/20college.html?hp&ex=1098331200& en=7556ff201f536c43&ei=5094&partner=homepage 10) 2 Shipbuilders Get Big Breaks in New Corporate Tax Bill By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON October 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/business/19corptax.html?hp&ex=1098244800&e n=9c348723956b0000&ei=5094&partner=homepage ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Oct 21 & Oct 22 - 9th Natl Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation From: rita akayama Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:36:22 -0700 (PDT) From: rita akayama Subject: To: office@october22.org, no1022 , oct22sf@energy-net.org Check out the Calendar of events: This is the 9th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. There will be protests around the country in more than 25 cities. Why is it important why we mobilize a powerful national outpouring for October 22nd, 2004: + As our research for the Stolen Lives Project makes clear, the authorities continue to give a green light to brutal, murdering cops. In the New York/ New Jersey over 101 people killed by law enforcement officers since 2001, and in the SF Bay Area over 40 killed by law enforcement since 2001. +TheyÂve continued racial profiling targeting Blacks and Latinos even as they expanded this heinous practice to target Arabs, Muslims and South Asians. +TheyÂve continued and expanded the police state clampdown they've been putting into place since Sept 11th. The sever limits on the rights to protest that was put in place around the RNC were only the most recent examples of this. CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE SF BAY AREA October 21- San Jose Justice Review Committee of the Human Relations Commission Meeting Thursday October 22nd 5:30pm pm 70 W. Hedding St. West Wing, basement, San Jose CA 95110 Many families who have been impacted by police shootings will share their concerns. If you can attend, please come dressed in black. contact: Richard Konda sccala@pacbell.net October 22, 4pm - San Francisco Press Conference/Speak Out 4921 3rd St (between Palou and Quesada) Familes Speak Out- Marylon Boyd, Mesha Irizarry and Sandra-Juanita Cooper,Danny Garcia, Regina Cardenas, Soto family and many other family members Also Organizations such as: Amnesty International, Dennis Cunnigham, atty, October 22nd Coalition, Police Watch/Ella Baker Center, Idriss Stelley Foundation, Day Laborers, Samina Faheem of American Muslim Voice, Yuri Kochiyama, Leroy Moore- poetry reading, And many more! Wear black that day in memory of those whose lives have been stolen from them. We must say loudly and clearly "We don't want your kind of safety. There ain't no safety in a police state! No More Stolen Lives!" Fight Back ! On October 22nd, Wear Black! October 22- Oakland Premiere Showing: Every Mother's Son 8-10pm Fellowship of Humanity 390 27th Street Fundraiser for No on Measure Y: Showing of the Film, "Every Mother's Son." The film is about victims of police violence in New York City and there will be guest speakers, including mothers of the victims. Suggested Donation $5-10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sponsored by United for Peace and Justice Bay Area October 22, 9pm-4am - Hip Hop Event San Francisco at Club Six In support of the 9th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation Club Six 60 6th St. (Hidden between Market/Mission in the heart of San Francisco's world famous SOMA district. Or take MUNI lines 5, 6, 7, 21, 71 towards Market, exit Powell, and walk 1 block to 6th St.) Lioness and Mr. E presents: SF UPROCK 5 with members of LOCO BLOCO SAKE 1 ,Jennicyde , Ren, Mr. E ,I-Jonah ,Jahyzer, Jus Rite B-boy & B-girl Psyher hosted by: Hound Dog Truckers Price: Ladies free b4 10:30pm, $10 after Check out our website at www.october22.org October 22nd Coalition 2940 16th St 200-6 San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 864-5153 oct22sf@energy-net.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT! Stop HR 10 Before Congress Starts a New War on Immigrants! In the past two weeks, the most right-wing Congressmen have tried to sneak horrible anti-immigrant measures past the public. These are not just any bills: Congress has begun its single BIGGEST ATTACK on immigrants in almost a DECADE. Please circulate widely. *If you live in these states you have a chance to help. Five Minutes of your time can safe many immigrant families. Will you please help? Samina F. Sundas EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT! Stop HR 10 Before Congress Starts a New War on Immigrants! In the past two weeks, the most right-wing Congressmen have tried to sneak horrible anti-immigrant measures past the public. These are not just any bills: Congress has begun its single BIGGEST ATTACK on immigrants in almost a DECADE. Recently, both houses passed the Â911 Commission Recommendations Implementation Act." The House of Representatives version -- HR 10 -- includes immigration amendments that were NEVER part of the CommissionÂs recommendations. Now,without further debate, against the wishes of the Commission, and with complete disregard for the rights of noncitizen Americans, a group of 21 Senators and House members will conference behind closed doors and decide whether to keep the anti-immigrant amendments when it goes to President Bush to be signed into law. We need your help, NOW! In 7 years alone, over one million immigrants have been deported. HR 10 would strip the few rights that noncitizens enjoy under our Constitution, and tear millions more families apart. Specifically, the proposed bill: · Radically expands drive-by-deportations · Suspends habeas corpus (the right to ask a court to review your detention/deportation) for the first time since the Civil War (Section 3009) · Allows deportations to a country with no government (Section 3035) · Allows more mandatory indefinite detentions,(Section 3032) · Makes it more difficult for people fleeing torture to gain asylum (Section 3007) · Allows Homeland Security to deport immigrants before federal courts have decided on their case. (Section 3009) · Restricts driver's licenses and consular ID cards (Section 3006) PLEASE PICK UP YOUR PHONE AND CALL! The War on Terror is a War on Immigrants. We have to stop it. So far, House staffers have said that they have received 5000 comments in support of HR 10 and only 15 in opposition of HR10. Change what they are hearing! CALL the members of Congress below and tell them: "I want you to remove ALL the immigration provisions of HR10 from the final 911 Commission bill. The immigration provisions strip people of basic Constitutional rights, and will tear countless families apart without serving national security." *In order of importance, call: 1. Congresswoman Susan Collins from Maine (202-224-2523) - She has the most influence over which version of the bills pass. 2. Senator Joe Lieberman from Connecticut (202-224-4041) - He is the ranking Democrat who needs to be told to stick firmly to the Senate bill and reject the HouseÂs anti-immigrant provisions. 3. Senator Mike DeWine (Ohio, 202-224-2315); Congressman Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin, 202-225-5101); Senator Graham (Florida, 202-224-3041); and SenatorVoinovich (Ohio, 202-224-3353). 4. Your own Congressperson and Senators. You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected. Or look them up at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. 5. As many of the other members of the Conference Committee as you can  these are the only people who will be deciding what sections of the bills will stay and what will go from the final bill. Senate Members of the Conference Committee Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey, 202-224-3224 Norm Coleman, Minnesota, 202-224-5641 John Sununu, NH, 202-224-2841 Pat Roberts, Kansas, 202-224-4774 Trent Lott, Mississippi, 202-224-6253 <> Carl Levin, Michigan, 202-224-6221 Richard Durbin, Illinois, 202-224-2152 John Rockefeller, West Virginia House Members of the Conference Committee Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., 2nd, 202-225-4401 Henry Hyde, R-Ill., 6th, 2020225-4561 David Dreier, R-Calif., 26th, 202-225-2305 Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., 52nd, 202-225-5672 Jane Harman, D-Calif., 36th, 202-225-8220 Ike Skelton, D-Mo., 4th, 202-225-2876 Robert Menendez, D-N.J., 13th, 202-225-7919 EMAIL or FAX (Go to http://capwiz.com/aila2/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=6540936 your message in the boxes provided.) Use your own words and experiences. You can include: · Remove all HR 10 immigration provisions from the final version of the "911 Commission Recommendations Implementation Act," especially Sections 3009 and 3039. These provisions were never a part of the 9-11 CommissionÂs recommendations. · If passed, they will prevent immigrants from being able to fight to keep their families together. They will tear apart families faster than the 1996 laws, which have already deported 1.2 million people and which many agree are unjust. · People will be deported before courts finish deciding their cases. Some people wonÂt even have access to federal courts to fight their deportations. Some people wonÂt have access to any courts. · These laws will not make the US any safer. Stop the war on immigrants. Stop calling us terrorists or pay with our families votes! IF YOU WANT TO DO MORE: Call us at Families for Freedom at 212-898-4121 or www.familiesforfreedom.org For more info on the bills, Visit http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=654 In 1996, one year after an act of terror in Oklahoma, a Republican Congress and Democratic president passed laws that have brutally destroyed families and communities. History has shown that we cannot expect ANY party to defend our rights if we don't make our voices heard. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) Anger Over Tax Cuts as Jobs Leave Towns By TIMOTHY EGAN GALESBURG, Ill. October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/national/20taxes.html?hp&ex=1098331200&en= b5b229e8f0a15ebd&ei=5094&partner=homepage GALESBURG, Ill. - People in this big-shouldered town, birthplace of the poet Carl Sandburg, say Maytag broke their hearts. After a decade of tax breaks and union concessions to keep the company in a place that has been making refrigerators for more than 50 years, Maytag closed its factory last month, terminating 1,600 jobs. Maytag may be done with Galesburg, but Galesburg is not done with Maytag. District Attorney Paul L. Mangieri wants to sue Maytag to recoup what he says were excess tax breaks in a broad package of incentives to keep the company here. Much of the money, he said, came from a purse that would have gone to schools in this economically fragile community. "We gave Maytag these incentives, and they accepted them," said Mr. Mangieri, a Navy veteran who grew up in a small town not far from here in western Illinois. "We did it based on faith and trust. If we don't do anything now, it sends a message that we lack the resolve to treat the rich and privileged the same as everybody else." Maytag says it honored its agreement and took just the breaks to which it was entitled. There are echoes of Mr. Mangieri's argument in Putnam County, Fla., which gave $4.5 million in cash and tax breaks to attract a call center owned by Sykes Enterprises, only to have it pull up stakes this month after less than five years in Palatka. "We ought to sue them," said Timothy Keyser, a Putnam County lawyer who opposed the tax breaks from the start. "They sold the county a bill of goods." Galesburg and Putnam are losers in the increasingly cutthroat game of using tax breaks to keep or attract jobs. Across the country, communities are competing with one another to offer the most lucrative incentives to lure good payrolls, from the giant assembly jobs at Boeing to small centers for processing credit cards, despite some studies that question the effectiveness of such tactics. Most communities that lose business afterward lick their wounds and walk away, as Putnam County plans to do. But in Galesburg, some people have decided to take a stand, and it has split this community, showing the challenges of fighting back against a corporation. After initially cheering their prosecutor for trying to regain some of the money used to keep Maytag, some people say they are afraid that they may scare off future employers. They question whether suing to reclaim tax breaks will hurt the community even more, adding that they have to pay companies to compete and that it is the cost of doing business in a vulnerable town. "Maytag's leaving town has devastated our community," said Jeff Klinck, a car dealer and the former chairman of the economic development office here. "But I don't think any good comes from revenge. We want to move forward, not move back." The final decision on whether to sue will be made by November, Mr. Mangieri said. Galesburg, site of a ferocious debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858, has a fighting spirit. Residents say the current civic gut check may determine whether the town becomes another casualty of the force that has devastated communities throughout much of Middle America. Next door in Iowa, officials are keeping one eye on the fight while trying to determine whether they should try to recoup up to $25 million in public money given to business partnerships that have not lived up to their agreements to increase employment. In New York, State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi said in an audit this year that a program that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to businesses that promise to create work ended up rewarding some businesses that lost jobs. Other state officials disputed those findings. "We're all in the same boat: we're hungry for business and we need the tax and job base," said Nancy S. Harris, a Putnam County commissioner. "But in the future, I think we have to do better background checks and tie tax breaks to length of stay and number of jobs." Executives at Maytag and Sykes said they had lived up to their agreements in accepting the tax breaks. In return for cash and reduced taxes, the companies created payrolls that more than made up for the inducements from local governments, they said. "We did not in any way break an agreement," Lynne Dragomier, a spokeswoman for Maytag at its headquarters in Newton, Iowa, said. "We believe we have paid our fair share of taxes in Galesburg." The legal question in Galesburg centers on whether Maytag received excess property-tax breaks. Under Mr. Mangieri's interpretation of the original deal, Maytag was entitled to $1 million in reduced property taxes. That amount grew to $2.1 million without protest from the county because the company was staying, county officials said. Though the dollar amount is relatively small, the company and Galesburg residents cite a larger principle. Over the years, Maytag benefited from state and local tax abatements, as well as money raised when people agreed to increase the sales tax. According to Mr. Mangieri, Galesburg raised $2.8 million in sales tax revenue to retrofit the refrigerator plant here, the State of Illinois came through with $5.8 million in aid, and Maytag was given 10 years of property tax abatements. Those breaks ended in 1999 and were not to exceed $1 million, Mr. Mangieri said. Ms. Dragomier said Maytag, which is moving most of the work from Galesburg to a new plant in Mexico, had always been honest in its dealings with Galesburg, population 33,000. "It's very difficult to close a plant like this, and we understand the pain it causes," she said. The company has 11 manufacturing plants in the United Stares, Ms. Dragomier said, and prides itself on its American workforce. But, she said, it is under "competitive pressure" to make some refrigerators at cheaper locations. At a Labor Day rally here, union leaders decried tax breaks for companies that do not agree to keep their jobs in the United States. They backed a proposal for "patriot corporations" that some lawmakers are circulating. Under that program, a company would receive a tax advantage if it kept production and a high percentage of sales in the United States. "Maytag betrayed us; everybody knows that," said Dave Bevard, a leader of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers local here. "What our district attorney wants to do is not a vindictive act. It's an issue of fairness." In Florida, Putnam County spent more money to lure Sykes, which operates call centers that provide customer service for other companies, than on any other economic development project, county officials said. In addition to the cash, Sykes was given a five-year break from local property taxes. The company opened its center in 2000. In barely four years, the payroll more than made up for the public cash, said Andrea Burnett, a spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Tampa. "Yes, they gave us $4.5 million, but in return they got a $120 million payroll," Ms. Burnett said. "That's a good return on their investment." The company is closing some of its American call centers while adding jobs to cheaper overseas centers, company executives have said. Smaller businesses say there is also a fundamental issue of fairness. Why not give a tax break to the reliable little company that holds a piece of Main Street real estate and never threatens to leave town? "We let the other taxpayers down if we don't go after Maytag," said Robin Davis, the county treasurer here in Galesburg, who favors a lawsuit to recover taxes from Maytag. "My sense is if people don't want to work here and pay taxes, we don't want them." There are six taxing entities that gave incentives to Maytag, and several have decided not to pursue the company, arguing that it sends the wrong message at a time the town is desperate to attract new jobs. "When I first heard Paul Mangieri talk about suing Maytag, I cheered," Mr. Klinck, the car dealer, said. "But on further reflection, I thought this would negate our message." Galesburg never tied its tax breaks and cash grants to a long-term stability, but the State of Illinois has since written certain requirements into its laws on enterprise zones. The city has passed a bond issue to build a logistical center that it hopes will attract railroad jobs. In Putnam County, Mr. Keyser was so incensed at Sykes's receiving cash and tax breaks that he sent a mock bill to county officials asking for a tax break of $25,000 for the one new employee he hired at his law firm. "It's universal blackmail out there," Mr. Keyser said, "with corporations all playing the same game." Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Soldiers fear that they are 'sleeping with the enemy' Adrian Blomfield discovers deep mistrust between American troops and Iraqi soldiers they are training (Filed: 18/10/2004) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/18/wirq218.xml& sSheet=/news/2004/10/18/ixnewstop.html If the US marines and Iraqi national guardsmen living at the Karmah military barracks near Fallujah talk at all, they speak through the bars of a small window. The Americans peer out from the ammunition room, filled with weapons confiscated from suspected insurgents, trading banter with the Iraqis who stand on tiptoes in a huddle outside, their eyes squinting against the glare of the late summer sun. Troops in Iraq Though there is laughter, things are not as they should be at Karmah barracks. "This is camp poison," whispers a marine. "Watch your back." The sinister atmosphere at Karmah barracks is not difficult to understand. The marines are convinced that many, perhaps most, of the 140 members of the Iraqi National Guard (ING) they share the camp with are double agents working on behalf of the insurgents holding Fallujah. In the past week alone the marines have arrested five of the guardsmen, including their commanding officer, Capt Ali Mohammed Jasim. It is just one example that a Vietnam-era experiment Washington resurrected to form the backbone of an offensive planned by the end of the year to retake Fallujah, the crucible of Iraq's insurgency, is going disastrously wrong. Under the Combined Action Platoon (CAP) scheme, US soldiers train Iraqi guardsmen, live with them in the same barracks and venture out on joint patrols, all steps towards a longer-term objective of the withdrawal of American troops. The plan was first developed in Vietnam, where US marines cohabited with local militias to defend villages from Vietcong raids. At the same time the marines trained the militiamen with the intention of turning them into an effective fighting force, but they were too ill-equipped and underpaid for the plan to have much success. Mark II of the CAP programme seems to be running into even greater problems. Across the country American troops work with their poorly equipped Iraqi colleagues in an atmosphere soured by distrust - especially in provinces where the insurgency is at its most intense. With Fallujah under insurgent control, US marines such as those at Karmah are trying to secure the surrounding al-Anbar province. Their efforts have been blighted by remotely detonated mines, known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), targeting the patrols that nervously venture out on to the lawless streets of towns that have become insurgent havens. Since June, some platoons have seen up to half their men wounded in action. Eighty marines have been killed in the province. The marines are convinced that the ING knows where many of the IEDs are planted, and even say they have caught guardsmen in the act of laying mines. When joint patrols come under attack, they say, the ING simply refuses to fight. As the relationship worsens, more and more ING are simply refusing to turn up at work. Of the 140 guardsmen based at Karmah an average of between 40 and 60 turn up on any given day. At other CAP barracks, that number is sometimes as low as two. Since the arrest of the Karmah ING captain, the rapport has become even more sullen. The marines sit under canvas shelters, convinced that the guardsmen lurking in their dormitories are traitors and murderers. "We know when this place is about to come under mortar attack because the ING suddenly disappear," one marine said, staring across the dusty compound at two guardsmen smoking on a wooden bench. "We are supposed to be fighting together, instead we are sleeping with the enemy." In their bare dormitory angry guardsmen queue up to tell their side of the story, accusing the marines of arrogance, bullying and a cavalier disregard for civilian life. Twelve guardsmen spoke to The Daily Telegraph, but all refused to identify themselves, saying they feared reprisals from the marines. "The first mistake they make is that when they are attacked they don't just fire at the terrorists, they shoot everywhere," one said. Other guardsmen alleged that the marines publicly humiliated and even physically assaulted them for minor misdemeanours. Another said he, like many others, had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in planting an IED. He said he was held for 14 days in a tiny "cooler" and then tortured during interrogation. "They would make me drink water and drink water and then kick me in the stomach till I vomited," he said. Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Maritime Worker Monitor #7 October 13, 2004 STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ AND THE WAR ON WORKERS! Join the Million Worker March! (This is a great argument in favor of the MWM and others like it. I felt it was important to pass it along even though it is after the Fact...BW) The Maritime Worker Monitor supports the Million Worker March on Washington on October 17th because workers in this country are catching hell and we need to organize to fight back. Millions of workers in this country remain jobless, homeless and without health care, while the U.S. government wages a bloody, and increasingly unpopular, war for oil and empire supported by both the Democrat and Republican Parties. We give the march critical support because it is calling for the independent mobilization of workers from the politicians of both big business parties, but does not explicitly call for a break with those parties and building an independent labor party, which was until recently ILWU's position. Ironically, the anti-war ILWU, as well as other unions, is supporting the pro-war Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry. Not only don't workers have a party to fight for them, the overwhelming majority (87%) have no union to fight for them. Today hotel workers across the country are under attack. They're striking to defend their union health care benefits and win a common contract expiration date nationwide. Last year it was the Southern California grocery workers whose medical benefits were under attack. They struck back but without the full mobilization of the organized labor movement, they lost. Police have been used against union workers striking for health care by both Democrat and Republican politicians. The fraudulent capitalist slogan of "guns and butter", (military might and social programs) is being exposed by the brutal daily slaughter of innocent people in Iraq, while workers here face intensified attack, often under the guise of "national security", as did the ILWU in its last contract negotiations. We faced threats to shackle us with legislation similar to the Railway Act, banning strikes. There were intimidating phone calls to the ILWU-- from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Homeland Security Czar Ridge, White House aides and Labor Department attorneys-- all warning that any disruption of cargo movements would jeopardize "national security". They threatened to occupy the docks with troops. Such threats did not apply to PMA's lockout which shutdown every port on the West Coast for 10-days. Then, at the urging of Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, Bush invoked the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act on the heels of PMA's lockout of longshore workers on the West Coast. Not one Member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, opposed the employer lockout or use of Taft-Hartley against the ILWU. It was a joint coercion of maritime employers and the government Labor needs to build its own party. We don't mean a phony labor party like the one in Britain that wages imperialist wars or a workers party like Lula's in Brazil which implements neo-liberal capitalist policies and uses police against striking workers and landless peasants. Defend workers' rights! End the war and occupation in Iraq NOW! It's the same struggle --against capitalist greed.There is a crying need for a powerful voice for labor to be heard NOW in its own name and for its own class interests! This march should be the first step in building our own fighting workers party! Yet, the voice of the top officials of the AFL-CIO obediently continue to support the war in Iraq and support the pro-war Democrat Kerry for president. The only answer is to end the war and immediately withdraw U.S. troops in Iraq. That's the ILWU position adopted May 1, at our Convention shortly after the war began. A growing number of unions have been following our lead in opposition to the war and occupation. Now, the ILWU Longshore Division has called for a march on Washington to demand that workers' concerns be addressed. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, an old-fashioned business unionist, has called the Million Worker March a "diversion" from getting Kerry elected and getting Bush out of the White House, as if labor's problems will be solved by Kerry. But Kerry and the Democrats also supported unionbusting "free trade" agreements like NAFTA, the Iraq war and bloody occupation, the repressive USA Patriot Act. And their double- dealing didn't just start recently. The slave laborTaft-Hartley Act was passed under Democrat President Truman with a majority Democrat/Dixiecrat Congress. Democrat President Carter tried to use it to break the miners' strike in 1978, but miners defied it. The recent tide of anti-labor attacks began with Republican President Reagan's busting of the PATCO, air controllers union, while the AFL-CIO did nothing. It continued under Democrat President Clinton who pushed for the passage of NAFTA, after winning labor's vote campaigning AGAINST it. That's typical of Democrat political shenanigans: Talk "labor" to get workers' votes. Act for the "bosses" once elected.The truth is that the government has attacked labor regardless of which party is in office--Republican or Democrat. The tactic of voting for the "lesser evil" has only left the labor movement in a weaker position politically after each election. Sweeney said he even agrees with many of the demands of the march, but that all union resources must be used to elect the so-called "friend of labor", the billionaire Kerry. This has been the timeworn task of labor fakers: to do the bosses' bidding as ILA President Ryan did in the 1934 maritime strike and as union bureaucrats cravenly do at election time, delivering labor's votes for the big business Democrat Party. ILWU's International, guided by its "new direction" (really an old direction) of collaborating with the employers (on technology) and the government (on "port security") and staying off the "militant union" radar screen is in lockstep with Sweeney. In fact, The Dispatcher, our union newspaper, had been silent on the Million Worker March which, along with the question of "port security", was energetically debated at our last Longshore Caucus. The Million Worker March resolution passed unanimously by delegates representing all ports on the U.S. West Coast. It finally saw the light of day in The Dispatcher AFTER Local 10 protested. By then, the ILWU International Executive Board had voted against the March at its August meeting. Despite bureaucratic attempts to block the march, it continues to steamroll ahead with endorsements and contributions pouring in from unions and rank and filers across the country. However, workers should be leery of the participation in the march by Jesse Jackson, the pied piper of the Dixiecrat/Democrat Party. The stated reason for the march is to mobilize workers independently of the Democrat and Republican Parties to fight for a workers' agenda in Washington. Jackson is one of the most prominent speakers for the Democrats. As death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, says it doesn't matter which "brokerage party" wins. He exhorts workers not to accept a slice of the pie. We produce all the wealth and need to make a revolutionary change in the social order. For this we need our own party, a workers party to fight against imperialist wars, racism and poverty and for free public education, universal health care, decent housing, and jobs for all. None of these social demands is achievable while the U.S. is engaged in the Iraq war/occupation, to which both parties' politicians pledge their undying loyalty, though none of their kids are in Iraq. Social gains can only be won by class struggle, fighting for them politically and on the picket line. Even the pretext of democracy is being shredded by capitalist government attacks against unions, against civil liberties and against civil rights, here and internationally. They must not go unchallenged. Police attacks against dockworkers have increased in frequency and intensity from Charleston, South Carolina to today in Holland and Spain. To not defend ourselves against such brazen unionbusting attacks--whether in the name of "port security" or "free trade" is to encourage bloodier attacks. One Portland longie said ,"It's like the bully in the schoolyard who steals your lunch money. If you don't stand up to him, he'll keep coming after you." The upcoming big fight will be over the "free trade" issue of "self-handling", in which employers claim the right to have the crew (frequently non-union slave wage workers) do longshore work of lashing onboard ship or dock work. The European Parliament barely defeated that measure last year, but the shipowners are trying their damdest to get it passed this year. Last year the ILWU took a token action in solidarity with our European dockworkers. This time we'll need to take real action to stop these unionbusting attempts by our joint global shipowners because we'll be next on the chopping block. The importance of this march is that it was generated from below, from the rank and file of labor, expressing an anger and alienation at the politics of both parties and at the leadership of the organized labor movement. The call for the march comes from workers that have recently engaged in militant union struggles. Furthermore, many of these union members, come from black and latino communities, amongst the most oppressed in America. We must turn this anger into the struggle for a fighting workers party. ALL OUT OCTOBER 17th! SOLIDARITY WITH THE MILLION WORKER MARCHERS! BUILD A WORKERS PARTY TO FIGHT FOR WORKERS! Editors: Jack Mulcahy, Portland -- laborunity@msn.com Mark Downs, Seattle-- mdowns@unions- america.com Jack Heyman, Oakland-- jackheyman@comcast.net Maritime Worker Monitor ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) How Many Iraqis Are Dying? By One Count, 208 in a Week TALLYING THE DEAD By NORIMITSU ONISHI BAGHDAD, Iraq October 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/international/middleeast/19casualties.html ?oref=login&hp BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 18 - It began with the killing of two Iraqi civilians in a suicide bomb attack against an American military convoy in the northern city of Mosul last Monday. It ended Sunday evening, when a car bomb killed seven Iraqi police officers and civilians at a Baghdad cafe where police officers had apparently broken their fast during this month of Ramadan. A weeklong effort to tally Iraqi casualties shows soldiers, insurgents, politicians, journalists, a judge, a medic and restaurant workers among the victims. They included Dina Mohammed Hassan, a television reporter killed by three men who called her a collaborator, and Ali Hussein's son and nephew, nighttime guards who died when Americans bombed a restaurant in Falluja. From Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, an estimated 208 Iraqis were killed in war-related incidents, significantly higher than the average week; 23 members of the United States military died over the same period. The deaths of Iraqis, particularly those of civilians, has become an increasingly delicate topic. Early this month, the Health Ministry, which had routinely provided casualty figures to journalists, stopped releasing them. Under a new policy that the government said would streamline the release of the figures - which were clearly an embarrassment to the government as well as to the Americans - only the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers is now allowed to do so. "It's a political issue," a senior Health Ministry official said last week. This account was pieced together from partial tallies by the Iraqi government, reporting by Iraqi employees of The New York Times stationed in Falluja, Mosul and Najaf, and counts from hospitals, news agencies and the American military. The tally remains imprecise and does not fully answer many of the most charged questions about the war. How can civilians be distinguished from insurgents? How can contradictory accounts of the same death be reconciled? According to a report by the Health Ministry, which last April began compiling figures for all regions except the Kurdish north, 3,040 Iraqis were killed in war-related incidents during the 22 weeks from April 5 to Sept. 6 - a little more than 138 deaths a week. The dead included 2,753 men, 159 women and 128 children. There are no agreed figures for civilian deaths in Iraq over all since the war began in early 2003, but the best estimates, by private groups and independent news organizations, place the figure in the 10,000 to 15,000 range. While many Iraqis blame American airstrikes and other military actions for taking the lives of innocents, they also believe that foreign fighters are behind the suicide attacks that tend to kill more Iraqis than Americans. The United States military emphasizes that the targets of its actions have been insurgents, and it also blames them for other deaths and damage that result from such raids. Last Thursday, on the same day that American jets intensified their bombardment of Falluja, thought to be the base of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant suspected of leading many anti- American attacks, the United States military released a statement that read in part: "A top priority is to avoid harming civilians and causing damage. However, by operating and hiding among civilians, the terrorists endanger innocent civilians and are directly responsible for any harm to the women and children they hide behind." The Secretariat of the Council of Ministers gave only partial figures for last week, releasing the numbers for only four days and mostly for Baghdad and the nearby cities. Of course, casualty figures tend to vary greatly depending on their source. On the first day of the seven-day period, 12 Iraqis were reported killed, including in the Mosul suicide attack. The other deaths took place in the three locations that proved the deadliest over the week: Falluja and Ramadi, where American forces have been engaged in combat, and Baghdad. On a highway outside Falluja, five passengers in one car were killed in an incident involving American soldiers. According to residents and hospital officials, the five - Kadhim Ahmed Hussein and his two sons, Jawad and Dhiya; and Layla Awad and her son Ali Khalaf - were driving from the Lake Habbaniya area, where they had sought shelter during the ongoing fighting, to check on their houses in Falluja. According to the United States military, the car approached a checkpoint at a location that an American patrol had cordoned off. Because the driver ignored warnings to stop even as the patrol received fire from elsewhere, the soldiers fired on the car. People in Falluja, however, said the five were shot without provocation. On Tuesday, 46 Iraqis were reported killed. Just after midnight, an American warplane flattened Falluja's most popular restaurant, Hajji Hussein, famous for its kebabs. The military said it was a meeting place for terrorists and was no longer frequented by ordinary people. Ali Hussein, the owner, said his son and nephew, who had been working as nighttime guards, were killed in the strike. He denied that insurgents came to the restaurant, which was founded by his father. "This is a well-known restaurant in midtown," Mr. Hussein said. "We have a lot of people always going in and out. No one can hide in here. We are on the main street. How could there be any Zarqawi people inside?" The largest number, at least 15, were reportedly killed in an attack against an Iraqi National Guard outpost near Qaim, along the border with Syria. Many Iraqi insurgents are believed to be based on the other side of the border and to receive support from Syrians. On Wednesday, 10 people were reportedly killed, including a police captain in Baquba, 35 miles northeast of here. Thursday, with 58 reported deaths, was the week's deadliest day and was also punctuated by suicide bombs inside the Green Zone, the site of the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries. Many Iraqis regarded by insurgents as collaborating with the Americans or the United States-backed government have been assassinated, and several were killed Thursday. South of here near Latifiya, Kamel al-Yassiri, an official with the secular National Democratic Coalition Party, was gunned down while driving on a highway; he was buried in Najaf the next day. In Mosul, a photographer who has worked for Western news organizations, Karam Hussein, 22, was gunned down outside his home. In Baghdad, a judge was shot to death while leaving his home for work; around the same time, Ms. Hassan, 38, a reporter for the Kurdish television network Al Huriya, was also killed. She had received three letters warning her to quit her job, said colleagues who were waiting to pick up her body outside the city morgue. She joined the network nine months ago after long working at the Ministry of Information, they said. "We used to joke to her that she should use the money she had saved to fix her teeth and get married," said a colleague, Naseer al-Timimy. "But because she was an orphan, she felt she needed to hold on to her money." On Thursday morning, as she and a colleague waited outside her apartment building for a company van, a blue Oldsmobile with three men pulled up in front of them, according to the account of the colleague, who survived. One of the men shot at her with a Kalashnikov and, after she fell on her back, shot her again in the face. "Collaborator! Collaborator!" the gunman is said to have yelled. "You could no longer recognize her features," said Ahmed al-Hamdani, a colleague who saw her minutes after the shooting. On Friday, the first day of Ramadan, though many had feared a surge in violence similar to the one last year, there were fewer deaths than on Thursday, with 24 people killed. Of those, 10 civilians died after a car bomb aimed at an Iraqi police patrol exploded in Baghdad. The dead included four laborers working in a nearby palm grove, two bystanders and a family of four inside a car, according to the American military. On Saturday and Sunday, 31 and 27 deaths were recorded, respectively. The largest number of victims were police officers, who have been attacked with deadly frequency by insurgents, who accuse them of supporting the Americans. On Saturday, nine police recruits returning from a training course in Jordan were ambushed near Latifiya. Then on Sunday evening, seven police officers and civilians were killed here after a car bomb went off outside a cafe popular with police officers, bringing an end to a deadly week in Iraq. Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Mosul, Falluja and Najaf for this article. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Oil Prices Climb Back to the $54 Level By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON October 20, 2004 Filed at 12:07 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Oil-Prices.html LONDON (AP) -- Crude oil prices climbed back to the $54 level Wednesday, reversing a two-day slide, after the U.S. government's weekly petroleum supply report showed a fifth straight week of declining inventories of distillate fuel, which includes heating oil and diesel. Traders are concerned about a potential winter-fuels crunch globally and remain jittery about the world's limited crude oil supply cushion. Crude for November delivery traded at $54.20 per barrel, up 91 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange in morning trade. The November crude contract expires Wednesday. The Energy Department reported a 1.9 million barrel drop in distillate fuel, bringing nationwide inventories to 119 million barrels, or 9.5 percent below year ago levels. Crude oil stocks grew by 1.2 million barrels to 279.4 million barrels, or 3.7 percent below last year. Oil prices have gone up sharply in the past month because of production snags in the Gulf of Mexico, where more than 22 million barrels of production have been lost since Hurricane Ivan hit in mid- September. Some 430,000 barrels of the region's potential daily oil output remains off line. Potential output problems in Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria and Russia have kept oil markets on edge all year, especially because the world's available production capacity is just 1 percent of daily demand, leaving little wiggle room in the event of a supply disruption. Although prices are up about 75 percent from a year ago, they are still about $26 below the all-time highs -- in inflation- adjusted terms -- of February 1981. In London, December Brent crude futures on the International Petroleum Exchange rose 33 cents to trade at $49.10 per barrel. Brent reached a record intraday high of $50.40 on Oct. 12. While gasoline consumption typically tapers off at this time of year, demand for home-heating fuels begins to rise. Moreover, heating oil stocks are also running low in Western Europe and in Japan, where kerosene stocks are down more than 10 percent from a year ago. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Homeless Families Blocked From Seeking U.S. Housing Aid By LESLIE KAUFMAN October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/nyregion/20homeless.html Ending a decades-old policy, city officials said yesterday that effective immediately, homeless families in emergency city shelters would no longer be allowed to apply for federal rent vouchers or public housing, tools that had been used to move troubled families into more permanent housing. Instead, the city is proposing to create a new program for helping homeless adults and families: a joint city, state and federally financed effort that would provide rental-assistance grants for up to five years, with the size of the grant shrinking each year. The city acknowledges that the new strategy carries significant financial risks. If the state does not agree to its share of the financing, the city estimates that 3,500 additional families will wind up in shelters - adding significantly to the near-record number there today - 37,000 people, including 9,000 families. Although the city on average bears only a third of those costs, the $25,000 per family price tag for a year in a city shelter is significantly higher than the estimated cost of rental assistance. Linda I. Gibbs, the city's commissioner of homeless services, said she had little choice but to search for an alternative to the use of federal vouchers. For starters, she said, the city has run out of available vouchers to give families, homeless or not. Also, she said, the program was making poor families believe that the fastest road to getting their own apartment was to become homeless. "We don't want people to think that the best way to get housing is to bundle their children up and take them to the E.A.U.," she said referring to the Emergency Assistance Unit, the Bronx office that is the entry point for the city's shelter system. The city's announcement was also meant to address what it said was another unacceptable consequence of being too generous in giving federal vouchers to the homeless: the cheating of working poor families who needed the benefit as well, but who stayed in difficult housing situations nonetheless. Steve Banks, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who has represented homeless families in their two-decade-old legal fight with the city, said the city's decision was a recipe for trouble. While praising the city for offering to put up new money for rental assistance, he said it would probably take too long to put the program in place, and in the interim there would be another influx of families into the city's shelter system. In past years, such surges would often leave the Emergency Assistance Unit overwhelmed, with families forced to sleep overnight on benches while they awaited placement in a shelter. In addition, Mr. Banks said the temporary nature of the new aid would cause problems in the future. "The assistance assumes relocated families will be able to pay their own rent on a phased- in basis, and available evidence is the homeless families have significant barriers to employment," he said. But Ms. Gibbs said that she was determined that the new subsidy would help people leave the shelters and achieve true self-sufficiency. The first year of the proposed subsidy, she said, would be about $925 a month for a family of three, but would decline by 20 percent a year after that. Officials said the city's proposed program would have numerous advantages over the current voucher subsidy. The money, for instance, would be available more quickly. In addition, the new program would be available to individual homeless adults, couples without children and families who could not get their children out of foster care simply because they did not have permanent housing. This year, none of those people qualify under the federal program, and childless couples never have. Of course, leaders in Albany have not yet signed on to the program. Ms. Gibbs said she is optimistic that the state will participate for numerous reasons. Since the state shares in the cost of the city's shelters, she said, it has an incentive to participate in a more effective, less expensive effort. Ms. Gibbs said she had been discussing the proposal with officials in Albany for more than a week. She had heard no response to the plan yet, but had been promised that one would come promptly. Calls made to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance after hours were not answered. In either case, city officials say their hand has been forced by the near-nonexistent supply of federal rent vouchers. The program is now at 100 percent capacity, according to Doug Apple, general manager of the city's housing authority, and tens of thousands of people are on the waiting list. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) Public University Tuition Is Up Sharply for 2004 By GREG WINTER October 20, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/education/20college.html?hp&ex=1098331200& en=7556ff201f536c43&ei=5094&partner=homepage Tuition at the nation's public universities rose an average of 10.5 percent this year, the second largest increase in more than a decade, according to the latest annual survey by the College Board. Last year's rise, 13 percent, was the highest. Private universities and community colleges also increased tuition, by 6 percent and 9 percent, in a year when inflation has been about 2.5 percent. The tuition increases at private and community colleges were also among the steepest in a decade. It is the first time that the average tuition at the nation's postsecondary institutions has surpassed $20,000 for a private college, $5,000 for a public university and $2,000 for a community college. The survey of nearly 2,700 colleges and universities, released yesterday, did not try to determine the reasons for the steep increases. But among the many factors cited by its authors and other higher education experts were shrinking endowments, large increases in health insurance costs for campus employees and anemic spending on higher education by states. "Until we publicly debate the quiet cost-shifting from state support to tuition that continues in far too many states, no amount of effort by our institutions to raise revenue and cut expenses will be able to preserve affordable tuition formulas, particularly at public colleges and universities," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college presidents. Despite the increases, the survey found, students are not necessarily paying all the extra costs. Financial aid has been increasing as well, and though it has not always kept pace with rising tuition, it has often softened the blow. As of last year, for example, the impact of grants and federal tax redits meant that students at private colleges actually paid an average of $9,600 a year in tuition and fees, about $1,000 more than they did a decade earlier, after adjusting for inflation, the survey found. At public universities, students ended up paying only $1,300 a year in tuition, about $200 less than they did a decade before, with adjustments for inflation. And at community colleges, grants and tax credits took care of the typical student's entire tuition. The authors said, however, that this year's increases in tuition were so large that they did not expect grants to keep up. Students are also becoming increasingly dependent on loans instead of grants, according to the College Board, an association of more than 4,500 schools, colleges and educational organizations. About a decade ago, there was almost as much grant money available to students as there were loans. But by last year, loans had become a much bigger piece of the financial aid puzzle, making up almost 50 percent more of the total pool than grants. Moreover, the nature of grants themselves has changed. The growing prominence of merit-based aid among many institutions, coupled with broader definitions of who qualifies for financial aid in such a costly market, has meant that by 2000 middle-income and wealthy students typically received larger grants from their colleges than did their low- income counterparts. Some of that may be because wealthier students tend to go to the wealthiest, most expensive institutions, which, in turn, can afford to give bigger grants than the colleges that poorer students usually attend. Nonetheless, the survey's authors said, the grants to wealthier students underscore a larger shift, echoed in many state programs, away from awarding financial aid on the basis of need. "It's absolutely true that the biggest increase in institutional aid has been to the upper-income families," said Sandy Baum, who analyzed the data for the College Board. In recent years, the issue of college affordability has increasingly become a political one, at times giving rise to Congressional campaigns to penalize colleges that raise tuition too quickly. But what the colleges say they fear most is that some prospective students, especially those who are wondering whether to attend, will choose not to go because of the cost. To that end, the College Board survey included data showing that graduates with bachelor's degrees could expect to earn 73 percent more than a high school graduate over their lifetimes. Those with master's degrees can expect to earn twice as much. Those with professional degrees can expect nearly three and a half times as much. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 10) 2 Shipbuilders Get Big Breaks in New Corporate Tax Bill By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON October 19, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/business/19corptax.html?hp&ex=1098244800&e n=9c348723956b0000&ei=5094&partner=homepage WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - A little-noticed provision in the sweeping corporate tax bill that passed Congress last week would reduce taxes at two major military contractors by nearly $500 million over the next 10 years. The provision, which primarily benefits General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, would allow shipbuilders to postpone their taxes for years on profits from building ships and submarines for the Navy. The new provision would benefit a handful of major shipyards, all owned by one of the two military conglomerates. They include the Bath Iron Works in Maine acquired by General Dynamics in 1995 and the company's Electric Boat division in Groton, Conn., as well as the Northrop-owned Newport News shipyard in Virginia. The new tax break would reverse a rule that Congress imposed as part of the sweeping tax overhaul of 1986, when lawmakers in both parties were incensed that major military companies often paid no income taxes despite earning billions of dollars providing major weapons systems to the military. Under the bill, Navy shipbuilders would be allowed to once again defer paying most federal income taxes on a project until the contract was completed. Because it takes about five years to build an aircraft carrier and three years to build a destroyer, the shipyards would be able to delay their tax bills for years, allowing more opportunity to offset taxes against future losses. The measure's primary sponsor was Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, who said she was determined to protect Bath Iron Works, one of her state's largest employers. "This provision takes dramatic steps to remedy the inequity of how naval shipbuilders pay their taxes," Ms. Snowe said in a statement last week, just after House and Senate negotiators agreed to include the provision in a broader bill that would shower $140 billion in tax cuts across almost every segment of industry. But critics said the provision would not create jobs, the stated intention of the tax bill, because employment at naval shipyards is determined almost entirely by federal spending on ships and submarines rather than by tax incentives. "We're not going to buy any more war boats if we give them a tax incentive," said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research group here that has long scrutinized corporate tax practices. "We're going to buy more boats if the government decides we need more boats." The shipbuilders' tax cut was typical of the furious scramble by lawmakers to include special provisions for their constituents in the bill. The final bill, which President Bush is expected to sign soon, includes tax breaks for oil companies, corn farmers, wine distributors and dozens of other highly specific industries. General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, which will also benefit from many of the new bill's general tax cuts, are heavy contributors to political campaigns. Since January 2003, General Dynamics' employees and political action committees have contributed $1.3 million, about 64 percent to Republicans. Northrop contributed $1.24 million, about 58 percent to Republicans. Senator Snowe was among dozens of lawmakers whose support was needed to win final passage. She was also part of a bipartisan group that tried to tie a $10 billion buyout program for tobacco farmers, which is also part of the bill, to a new requirement that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. House Republicans rejected that provision, but Ms. Snowe voted for the overall bill in part because it included the shipbuilding tax break that she had proposed. She was hardly alone. Senator John Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, opposed many parts of the overall bill but supported the shipbuilding tax break and numerous other tax cuts for oil companies that are big employers in his state. Few if any lawmakers publicly objected to the shipbuilding provision, which was tiny in comparison with sweeping tax cuts, worth $42 billion over 10 years, on foreign profits of American multinationals. The House and Senate passed the overall bill by overwhelming majorities. Under current law, shipbuilders have to pay income taxes on long-term Navy contracts based on the percentage of work they have finished. When that requirement was imposed in 1986, lawmakers were furious that top military contractors were deferring almost all of their taxes, even though they were getting progress payments throughout the term of their contracts. According to Mr. McIntyre, the top 12 Pentagon suppliers paid an effective tax rate of only 6.3 percent in the early 1980's, and some companies often paid none. General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman have both enjoyed big jumps in sales and profits from their shipbuilding divisions, which are dominated by Navy contracts, but tax payments at both companies during the same period declined. At General Dynamics, which makes the Arleigh Burke class of Navy destroyers and Seawolf-class nuclear submarines, its marine division generated $2.5 billion in sales in the first six months of 2004, up 20 percent from the first half of 2003. Earnings in the marine business increased 39 percent, to $179 million, in the first six months of this year, compared with the first half of 2003. Despite rising profits in all its divisions, General Dynamics' overall tax payments declined sharply in the first six months of this year, to $78 million from $119 million in the first half of 2003. At Northrop Grumman, which produces aircraft carriers and a new generation of destroyers, profits in the shipbuilding division nearly doubled, to $186 million, in the first half of 2004 from $98 million in the first half of 2003. Northrop's overall tax payments fell to $291 million in the first half of 2004 from $112 million in the first half of 2003. Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association, said the new measure was necessary because shipbuilders often lose money early in a multiyear contract. "A naval ship takes us anywhere from three and one half years to seven years to build, and an aircraft carrier can take as long as eight years,'' Ms. Brown said. Even though the government makes periodic "progress payments'' as the work is completed, she said, those payments often fall short of costs in the beginning because the heaviest costs are at the start of a contract. "This is not a tax cut,'' she said. "This is a cash-flow issue.'' Copyright 2004 The New York Times
Monday, October 18, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2004---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW! MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW! WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURS. OCT. 22 & OCT. 28, 7PM, GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303 (NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Workers March in D.C. for Health Care By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) Filed at 8:04 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Workers-March.html 2) Unionists Mobilize for Work, Benefits Thousands Drawn to Rally at Lincoln Memorial in Prelude to Nov. Vote By Manny Fernandez and David Nakamura Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, October 18, 2004; Page B01 3) National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation, on Friday, October 22nd. Events in San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland this week. More info (including links) at http://www.indybay.org/police 4) Subject: Lynne Stewart trial From: "Larry Felson" Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:05:15 +0000 Post from Lynne Stewart web site: October 13, 2004: Because of circumstances beyond our control, the trial will resume on Monday, October 18th. Check back to her web site for up dated information: http://www.lynnestewart.org/ 5) Soldiers Saw Refusing Order as Their Last Stand By NEELA BANERJEE and ARIEL HART October 18, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/national/18guard.html?hp&ex=1098158400&en= b6cde713635fabbc&ei=5094&partner=homepage 6) Iraqi Premier Plans Expansion of Arms Handover Program By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DEXTER FILKINS BAGHDAD, Iraq October 18, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/international/middleeast/18CND-IRAQ.html?h p&ex=1098158400&en=39fafcef49fdf2f4&ei=5094&partner=homepage 7) Study Says White Families' Wealth Advantage Has Grown By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (AP http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/national/18wealth.html 8) Southwest Airlines Third-Quarter Profit Increases By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DALLAS (AP) Filed at 6:36 p.m. ET October 14, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Earns-Southwest-Airlines.html 9) Justices Weigh Executions of Young Killers By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON October 14, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/politics/14scotus.html 10) Militants ready for onslaught on Fallujah By Aqeel Hussein in Fallujah and Philip Sherwell (Filed: 17/10/2004) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/17/wirq17.xml&s Sheet=/portal/2004/10/17/ixportal.html 11) Britain Considers U.S. Request for More Iraq Help By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) Mon Oct 18, 2004 07:15 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6527746&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news 12) Iraq to Widen Arms Amnesty, Bring Falluja to Heel By Alistair Lyon BAGHDAD (Reuters) Mon Oct 18, 2004 08:27 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6528800&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news 13) Broad Use of Harsh Tactics Is Described at Cuba Base By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/politics/17gitmo.html 14) 'If this isn't genocide, then what on earth is?' Lord Alton reports on the killings, rape, burnings and looting that continue unabated in Darfur in an impassioned plea for action to the Prime Minister 18 October 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=573217 15) Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us? Comment Naomi Klein Iraqis are still being forced to pay for crimes committed by Saddam The Guardian Saturday October 16, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1328664,00.html 16) Indian Country Today Denver police arrest 245 for blocking Columbus Day Parade by: Brenda Norrell ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Workers March in D.C. for Health Care By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) Filed at 8:04 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Workers-March.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of workers gathered at the Lincoln on Sunday to demand health care, better wages, guaranteed Social Security benefits and an end to the war in Iraq. Many of the longshoremen, transit workers, carpenters and mail carriers carried signs saying ``Bush lied, thousands died,'' ``More money for jobs, not war'' and others. In the decidedly anti- President Bush atmosphere, some wore T-shirts and badges advocating the election of Democrat John Kerry or Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader. Organizers had billed the gathering as the ``Million Worker March'' and had obtained a permit for a gathering of more than 100,000 on the National Mall. The turnout was much smaller, but U.S. Park Police has not made official crowd estimates since a furor arose in 1995 over its estimate of 400,000 at the ``Million Man March'' sponsored by the Nation of Islam. Standing on the Lincoln Memorial steps where his father delivered his ``I have a dream'' speech in 1963, Martin Luther King III told the crowd that civil rights, workers and anti-war activists must come together in common cause. ``Our most important step that we can take is the short step to the ballot box,'' King said. ``We must vote like we never have before.'' Robert Ortiz, 45, a safety and health representative for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York, said he plans to vote for Kerry, but the Democrats take labor for granted. ``Republicans are an overt enemy of labor,'' he said, ``but Democrats are not as active as they could be.'' Organizers claimed endorsements from unions representing 3.5 million workers, including chapters of the Communications Workers of America, United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) Unionists Mobilize for Work, Benefits Thousands Drawn to Rally at Lincoln Memorial in Prelude to Nov. Vote By Manny Fernandez and David Nakamura Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, October 18, 2004; Page B01 Union members from across the country gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday for a rally dubbed the Million Worker March, assembling in smaller-than-expected numbers but making a passionate plea for workers' rights. Linking their struggle with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by standing on the same spot where the slain civil rights leader made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963, workers from a variety of trades and causes said King's vision of social and economic equality remains more dream than reality. "The majority of working people in America are not doing well," said Clarence Thomas, 57, a crane operator on the Oakland, Calif., docks and a leader of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 in San Francisco, a key organizer of yesterday's rally. "With jobs being offshored, outsourced, privatized, our young people are looking at a much more dismal future." Thousands stood at the foot of the memorial and along the sides of the Reflecting Pool on a chilly October afternoon, calling for more jobs, universal health care and an end to the war in Iraq. But with room to walk freely and stretches of grass visible, the crowd by midafternoon appeared far smaller than the 100,000 that organizers had estimated on their National Park Service permit application. A law enforcement official estimated the crowd at less than 10,000. Organizers said 10,000 to 15,000 attended. The Million Worker March title was meant to evoke the imagery of the 1995 Million Man March and not to reflect a crowd count, the organizers said. They said they were not disappointed by the turnout, although they complained that authorities prevented about 30 buses from dropping off passengers near the memorial and redirected them to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, causing many to show up late or not at all. U.S. Park Police and D.C. police officials said they were not aware of any buses being diverted. The protest and a few related small marches were largely peaceful. Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman, said only one arrest was made -- a woman charged with demonstrating in a restricted zone near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a misdemeanor. In the crowd were postal workers and longshoremen, school bus drivers and teachers, department store staff and railway repair crews. They said they came to Washington by car, bus and airplane just days before Election Day to highlight the social, economic and political hardships facing working Americans at home and on the job. "I think we need a change," said Ronnie White, 48, a production worker at a food plant in Kansas City, Mo., who stood on the steps above the Reflecting Pool proudly wearing his black Teamsters Local 838 jacket. "We need the jobs here, not overseas." An end to the outsourcing of jobs abroad was just one of the rally's many far-reaching goals. Workers called for health care coverage from "cradle to grave" for all Americans, a national living wage, a repeal of the USA Patriot Act, more funding for public schools and free mass transit, to name a few of their 22 demands. Antiwar sentiment was also strong. Workers criticized the Bush administration for leading the country into what they called an unjustified war with Iraq, saying that the billions of dollars paying for the war are needed instead in struggling schools and communities. "We need to employ, not deploy," said Mark Barbour, 51, of Blacksburg, Va., a longtime railway worker and member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Local 551. Steve Burns, 43, a teacher at a Madison, Wis., community college, endured a 14-hour van ride to Washington to have his voice heard -- and his handmade sign seen. Burns's felt-pen message was "End For-Profit Health Care." He said he does not receive health care benefits as an adjunct math instructor and is still paying off a recent $1,200 hospital bill for an infection. "Our health care system is a disaster, and neither candidate wants real reform," Burns said. Though organizers had planned their protest as nonpartisan, speakers and rallygoers were not bashful in showing their disapproval of President Bush. From a podium on a wide granite landing on the memorial steps, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark called for the impeachment of Bush for war crimes. Activists in the audience carried anti-Bush stickers and signs, and one of the most prominent banners on display was one declaring, "The Bush regime engineered 9-11." The turnout fell far short of the 250,000 who filled the Mall for the labor movement's last major Washington demonstration, an August 1991 "Solidarity Day" rally that blamed political leaders, including Bush's father, then-President George H.W. Bush, for turning their backs on U.S. workers. That rally was sponsored by the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation. But AFL-CIO leaders refused to officially endorse or help organize yesterday's gathering, saying they were focused instead on mobilizing voters for the presidential election, a decision echoed by several major unions. Organizers, who said unions representing more than 3.5 million workers backed the demonstration, said the AFL-CIO's decision hurt the turnout, but they expressed pride that their low-budget rally was largely a rank-and-file effort. Not all were trade unionists. About 100 protesters took part in an 11 a.m. "anarchist march," where Daniel Hall, 20, a student at the University of Maryland, marched with a group of students holding up a large banner that read, "Students and workers unite!" Hall said he hoped the march "gets people thinking about labor and how things are not getting better. It's a system of inequality." Later in the afternoon, following speeches by King's son, Martin Luther King III, and other civil rights and union leaders, a few hundred marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Hotel Washington on 15th Street NW in support of District hotel workers. Negotiators for several major Washington hotels and the union that represents 3,800 hotel employees remain deadlocked on a new contract. Protesters chanted outside the hotel's doors as police looked on. Three hotel workers leaned out a third-floor window, looked down on the crowd and waved in support. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: < http://montages.blogspot.com/ > * Greens for Nader: < http://greensfornader.net/ > * Bring Them Home Now! < http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ > * OSU-GESO: < http://www.osu-geso.org/ > * Calendars of Events in Columbus: * Student International Forum: < http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ > * Committee for Justice in Palestine: < http://www.osudivest.org/ > * Al-Awda-Ohio: < http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio > * Solidarity: < http://www.solidarity-us.org/ > ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation, on Friday, October 22nd. Events in San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland this week. More info (including links) at http://www.indybay.org/police The week after the National Conference on Police Accountability comes the 9th Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation, on Friday, October 22nd. A variety of events will take place around the Bay Area during that week. Many of the events provide a way to bring out the stories of families and loved ones of people who have been killed by law enforcement officers or while in custody, as well as addressing other problematic interactions between police and civilians. This year's call to action focuses on the parallels between what is happening in Iraq and Palestine, and what is happening in neighborhoods like San Francisco's Bayview/Hunter's Point; exposure of the problems related to racial profiling in the US, particularly of new groups such as Arabs and Muslims, and the criminalization of the right to protest by programs such as Homeland Security. On Thursday the 21st in San Jose, family members of people who died in police shootings will share their concerns at the Justice Review Committee of the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission, at 5:30pm. Members of the Rudy Cardenas Family, Bich-Cau Thi Tran Family, and Zaim Bojcic family will attend the meeting and speak about their issues. Speakers at the meeting will also address the use of tasers/stun guns by law enforcement. In the last two police shootings in San Jose tasers were deployed but were not effective. More info about tasers Members of the Coalition for Justice and Accountability, which formed after the tragic death of Bich-Cau Thi Tran last year, the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, Amnesty International, and Justice for Rudy will also be in attendance. In San Jose on October 22nd, an event will be held to sensitize people to the history, culture, customs, and different concerns that European immigrant communities face, in order to make people more aware of the different issues that refugees have to deal with in their lives here in the US. This event was inspired by the death of Zaim Bojcic. Also on October 22nd, a press conference and speak-out rally will be held at 4pm at 3rd St. and Palou in the Bayview District of San Francisco. Later in the evening on October 22nd, the No on Measure Y Campaign will show the film Every Mother's Son as a fundraiser, from 8-10 at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street (near 27th and Broadway) in Oakland. From 9pm till late on October, 22nd, Lioness and Mr. E presents: SF Uprock 5, with members of October 22nd supporters Loco Bloco, as well as SAKE 1, Jennicyde, Ren, and Mr. EB-boy & B-girl Psyher; hosted by: Hound Dog Truckers-- at Club Six in San Francisco. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Subject: Lynne Stewart trial From: "Larry Felson" Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 08:05:15 +0000 Post from Lynne Stewart web site: October 13, 2004: Because of circumstances beyond our control, the trial will resume on Monday, October 18th. Check back to her web site for up dated information: http://www.lynnestewart.org/ -- On behalf of the National Office of Refuse & Resist! 305 Madison Ave., Suite 1166 NY, NY 10165 http://www.refuseandresist.org info@refuseandresist.org Tel: 212.713.5657 Get hooked in to the movement of resistance, subscribe to the R&R! email list. TO SUBSCRIBE: General information about the mailing ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Soldiers Saw Refusing Order as Their Last Stand By NEELA BANERJEE and ARIEL HART October 18, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/national/18guard.html?hp&ex=1098158400&en= b6cde713635fabbc&ei=5094&partner=homepage JACKSON, Miss., Oct. 17 - What does it take for a man like Staff . Michael Butler, a 24-year veteran of the Army and the Reserve who was a soldier in the first Persian Gulf war and a reserve called up to fight in the current war in Iraq, to risk everything by disobeying a direct order in wartime? On the morning of Oct. 13, the military says, Sergeant Butler and most of his platoon, some 18 men and women from the 343rd Quartermaster Company, refused to deliver a shipment of fuel from the Tallil Air Base near Nasiriya, Iraq, to another base much farther north. The Army has begun an inquiry, and the soldiers could face disciplinary measures, including possible courts-martial. But Jackie Butler, Sergeant Butler's wife, and her family in Jackson say he would not have jeopardized his career and his freedom for something impulsive or unimportant. The soldiers, many of whom have called home this weekend, said their trucks were unsafe and lacked a proper armed escort, problems that have plagued them since they went to Iraq nine months ago, their relatives said. The time had come for them, for her husband, to act, Ms. Butler said. "I'm proud that he said 'no,' " Ms. Butler said. "They had complained and complained for months to the chain of command about the equipment and trucks. But nothing was done, so I think he felt he had to take a stand." Other soldiers completed the mission the platoon turned down, the military kept functioning, and the Army has cast the incident as isolated. But as the soldiers involved in the refusal in Tallil and others begin to speak out, it is growing more apparent that the military has yet to solve the lack of training, parts and equipment that has riddled the military operation in Iraq from the outset, especially among National Guard and Reserve units. Brig. Gen. James E. Chambers, commander of the 13th Corps Support Command, which the 343rd reports to, said at a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday that he had ordered two investigations into the incident and the concerns expressed by the 18 soldiers "regarding maintenance and safety.'' General Chambers said preliminary findings showed that the unit's trucks were not yet armored and were among the last in his command to get such protection, because they usually functioned in less dangerous parts of Iraq. None of the trucks in his command were armored when they arrived in Iraq, General Chambers said. He told reporters that he had ordered a safety and maintenance review of all trucks in the 343rd. "Based on results of this investigation other actions may be necessary,'' the general said, but he added, "It's too early in the investigation to speculate on charges or other disciplinary actions.'' General Chambers described the episode as "a single event that is confined to a small group of individuals.'' A number of Army officers contacted in recent days said such an apparent act of insubordination was very unusual, particularly among such a large number of soldiers in a single unit and especially since the military is all volunteer. The incident has prompted widespread interest among military families who have complained in months past of inadequate equipment and protection for their soldiers. Nancy Lessin, a leader of Military Families Speak Out, which opposes the war, said she had been flooded with calls and e-mail from families with a simple message: What had happened to the reservists echoed the conditions their own soldiers experienced in Iraq: a shortage of armored vehicles, especially for part-time soldiers' units; convoy missions through dangerous stretches without adequate firepower; and constant breakdowns among old vehicles owned, especially, by National Guard and reservist units. "This is absolutely striking a nerve," Ms. Lessin said. "People are s aying, 'This is the same thing that happened to my son,' and if the Army tries to spin this as 'just a few bad apples,' people need to know that these are common problems and what these soldiers did required a tremendous amount of courage." Nothing seems to separate the men and women who defied their command in Tallil from the tens of thousands of others now in Iraq, their families say. The 343rd was drawn mainly from Southern states like the Carolinas, Alabama and Mississippi, and the military said Friday that the 343rd had performed honorably during its tour in Iraq. The soldiers in the platoon are described as devoted to the military and unabashedly patriotic. A wall of Sergeant Butler's living room is covered with certificates and citations from the Army. Another member of the 343rd, Specialist Joe Dobbs, 19, of Vandiver, Ala., had his bedroom painted the dark blue of the American flag. And another soldier in the unit, Sgt. Justin Rogers of Louisville, Ky., liked to walk around town in his uniform when he was home on leave, said Chris Helm, a 14-year-old high school student and his first cousin. When Sergeant Rogers went home for a two-week leave in July, his brother Derrick asked whether the war and all the deaths were worth it. "His answer was simple," Derrick Rogers said. "He said, 'If I didn't feel like it was worth it, I wouldn't be there.' '' Ms. Butler did not want to speak for her husband on his feelings about the war. Better he should do that when he is finally home, she said, which is scheduled to be sometime next year. But Sergeant Butler knew he would be called up, once the war against Iraq was begun in March 2003. Late last year, he reported to Rock Hill, and quickly, his confidence was shaken, his wife said. He saw that the equipment to be shipped with his unit was "not very good," Ms. Butler said. Once the unit arrived in Iraq, the inadequacy of the platoon's equipment and preparedness was thrown into sharp relief against the dangers the country posed. Although the unit is based near Nasiriya in the Shiite-controlled south, which is not as volatile as Sunni-dominated areas, the whole country has been convulsed by battles and uprisings during most of the 343rd's tour of duty. "This is not the first time that there has been a problem with these charges and stuff, with them not having armor, not having radios," said Beverly Dobbs, mother of Specialist Dobbs. "My son told me two months ago - he called me, he said, 'Mom I got the scare of my life.' "'I said what's wrong?'" Ms. Dobbs said. "He said, 'They sent us out, we come under fire, our own people was shooting and we didn't even have radios to let them know.' They're sending them out without the equipment they need. I don't care what the Army says." Families that spoke to the soldiers this weekend received slightly differing accounts of what happened the morning of Oct. 13. They all said, however, that fuel the soldiers had to deliver was unusable because it had been contaminated with a second liquid. They all said the soldiers were under armed guard. General Chambers denied both assertions. Relatives say that Sergeant Butler, Sgt. Larry McCook of Jackson and Specialist Scott Shealey of Graysville, Ala., have been identified as three of five "ringleaders" of the incident and reassigned to other units on the air base. Specialist Shealey's parents said their son said in a telephone call that he was going to be discharged. "He'll be home in three to four weeks, that's what he's being told," said Ricky Shealey, Specialist Shealey's father, a retired Postal Service supervisor and former sergeant in the Army. "He's depressed," Mr. Shealey said. "He just can't believe it's happening." Ms. Butler said her husband did not know what he might be facing and had heard nothing about a discharge. Other families said the military had yet to contact them to explain the situation. The families have not hired lawyers yet, in large part because they are uncertain what charges might be brought against their relatives. Some families are reaching out to one another through e-mail and phone calls, offering help and discussing strategy. They have contacted their members of Congressmen. Others, like Ms. Dobbs and her family, are glued to television news, awaiting some clarification of the incident. Ms. Butler has her big family to lean on, and on this Sunday, the day after the phone call from her husband, they went to church and turned to their neighbors, friends and faith. Ms. Butler went to the altar rail of Zion Travelers Missionary Baptist Church and told the congregation: "My husband has been in the Army more than 20 years, but refused to take those men in that convoy. He said it would be suicidal.'' "So, I'm going to ask you to pray for me," she said, "because he is not going to take no other men's children into the land of death." She bowed her head, and so did everyone else. "Lord, Sister Butler needs you," the Rev. Daniel Watkins said, shutting his eyes tight. "Her husband, he needs you. All the soldiers in Iraq, they need you." Monica Davey contributed reporting from Chicago for this article, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Dexter Filkins from Baghdad. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Iraqi Premier Plans Expansion of Arms Handover Program By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DEXTER FILKINS BAGHDAD, Iraq October 18, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/international/middleeast/18CND-IRAQ.html?h p&ex=1098158400&en=39fafcef49fdf2f4&ei=5094&partner=homepage BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 18 - Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq said today that a weapons-for-cash program in Baghdad would be expanded nationwide. Militiamen loyal to the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr started surrendering hundreds of weapons last week in a deal struck with the Iraqi government and the American military to end months of fighting in the rundown eastern Baghdad neighborhood known as Sadr City. The buy-back brought in enough arms in its first week to prompt Iraqi officials on Sunday to extend the program to Tuesday. The cooperation with the buyout has raised hopes that Mr. Sadr would go forward with plans to turn away from fighting and toward entering the country's democratic process. Underscoring the buyout's progress, Dr. Allawi ventured into the heart of Baghdad's hostile Shiite district on Sunday to salute the militia, the Mahdi Army, for surrendering more than 1,000 of its heavy weapons in the past week. As Iraqi troops nearby assembled stacks of surrendered weapons at a soccer stadium in the district, Sadr City, Dr. Allawi said he was "thrilled" and urged more progress. A senior aide to Mr. Sadr said on Sunday that the militia had no objection to the extension. "The government is determined to disarm cities and neighborhoods because our forces are now ready to fight terrorists and there's no justification for people to keep weapons at home," Dr. Allawi told Iraqi lawmakers, according to news agency reports. Iraqi and American officials contend that Mr. Sadr still has much of his arsenal. But American commanders echoed Dr. Allawi's encouragement on Sunday, though they emphasized that the militia must deliver far more weaponry. The military said that Mr. Sadr's militia had turned in about 700 rocket-propelled grenades and about 400 mortar shells, along with hundreds of lighter weapons, and that the Iraqi government had paid about $1.2 million in return. Even as the disarmament appeared to gain momentum, insurgents continued attacks in Baghdad on Sunday. Before Dr. Allawi arrived at the stadium in Sadr City, mortar fire struck it, killing two people. And news agencies reported that a car bomb had exploded near a cafe, killing at least seven and wounding 20. In a message posted Sunday on Islamic Web sites, Iraq's most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and emphasized the need for unity against "the enemies of Islam." Outside Falluja, American marines resumed fierce clashes with insurgents, continuing a military push that began on Friday and appeared to be laying the groundwork for an attempt to retake the city from insurgents. The military fired heavy artillery and tank-gun barrages and dropped guided bombs on militant safe houses and weapons caches, military officials said. Dr. Allawi also said today that a $2 million aid package worth $2 million would be extended to Falluja, according to the Agence France-Press. Mr. Sadr is thought to have hundreds of loyalists across southern Iraq, in cities like Amara, Basra and Diwaniya. Iraqi officials have long worried that unless those groups also turn in their heavy weapons, they pose a serious threat to the nationwide elections scheduled for January. In recent weeks, Mr. Sadr has been meeting with leaders from across the Iraqi political spectrum, telling them he is planning to transform his movement from an armed group into a democratic one. Many Iraqis, and the Americans especially, are skeptical of Mr. Sadr, given his record of breaking similar promises. But circumstances for Mr. Sadr have changed in recent months, all of which may be nudging him into the political system. His militia has suffered a pounding at the hands of the Americans in Sadr City and Najaf. And the Americans and the Iraqi government have promised to embark on a campaign of house-to-house searches in the area to find whatever weapons Mr. Sadr does not turn over. At the same time, Mr. Sadr has come under intense pressure from mainstream Shiite leaders, who see the elections in January as the clearest path to political power. Shiites comprise about 60 percent of the Iraqi population. Mr. Sadr's own aides said he was moving in that direction. "We are part of the political process now," said Karim Bakhati, a representative of Mr. Sadr, after the meeting with Dr. Allawi at the weaponsfor-cash handover. "The Iraqi government wants to have such centers outside Baghdad, and we don't have any objections to that." American and Iraqi officials say they believe that Mr. Sadr is playing something of a double game: He may intend to make a foray into democratic politics, but he is trying to keep as much as of his militia as he can, if only because many of the country's largest political parties have their own armed groups as well. The Americans said they were still worried about as many as 100 homemade bombs that are thought to be planted under the streets of Sadr City, a type of bomb that has killed and wounded dozens of American soldiers. American commanders said that only two such bombs had been turned in, and that it would be difficult or impossible to restart the American-financed reconstruction program, which employed 15,000 Iraqis until the fighting intensified in August, until the roadside bombs were unearthed. Still, the American commanders said they were encouraged by the effort. "We're never going to get them to give up everything," a senior American military officer said. "But this is not a bad deal. It gets these weapons off the street and it helps us equip the new Iraqi security forces. I can't imagine it's not hurting the Mahdi militia in some way." Whatever else it has accomplished, the deal struck by Mr. Sadr and the Iraqi government earlier this month has transformed the atmosphere in Sadr City. Since August, the area has been the scene of intense fighting and almost nightly air raids by American planes and jets. On Sunday, the streets were mostly quiet, and the tension in the area had receded significantly. The public appeal of Mr. Sadr was driven home Sunday to Dr. Allawi. As the prime minister prepared to leave the soccer stadium, a crowd of Mr. Sadr's militiamen began to chant. "Long Live Moktada!" they shouted. "Long live Moktada!" In Falluja on Sunday, American marines engaged in gun battles with insurgents at the outskirts of the town. The marines said that one of their patrols was attacked by a group of insurgents firing mortars, machine guns and grenade launchers, and that they returned fire with artillery, tanks and seven bombs dropped from the air. The marines said the insurgents, some of whom evidently survived the onslaught, piled their guns into a taxi and a pickup truck and drove to a mosque. "Marines did not fire on the mosque," the statement said. The patrols being carried out by the marines are intended to disrupt the insurgents and draw their fire. The operations, which began Friday, appear to be laying the groundwork for an offensive to recapture the city, which fell under the control of insurgents in April. The insurgents are still very much in control of the city. One of them, Muhammad al-Mehimmadi, took a break from the fighting on Sunday and spoke with fervor about resisting an American-led assault. "We are on the right side, and God is with us, and anyone who has God on his side never loses," Mr. Mehimmadi said. "The greatest evidence of that is what happened in April. Let the Americans do what they intend to do, and they will see wonders." Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Falluja. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Study Says White Families' Wealth Advantage Has Grown By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (AP http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/national/18wealth.html WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (AP) - The enormous wealth gap between white families and black and Hispanic families grew larger after the most recent recession, a private analysis of government data has found. White households had a median net worth of greater than $88,000 in 2002, 11 times that of Hispanic households and more than 14 times that of black households, the Pew Hispanic Center said in the study, being released Monday. Blacks were slowest to emerge from the economic downturn that started in 2000 and ended early in 2001, the report found. Net worth accounts for the value of items like a home and a car, checking and savings accounts, and stocks, minus debts like mortgage, car loans and credit card bills. Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, said the accumulation of wealth allows low-income families to rise into the middle class and "have some kind of assets beyond next week's paychecks." "Having more assets enabled whites to ride out the jobless recovery better," Mr. Suro said. According to the group's analysis of Census Bureau data, nearly one-third of black families and 26 percent of Hispanic families were in debt or had no net assets, compared with 11 percent of white families. "Wealth is a measure of cumulative advantage or disadvantage," said Roderick Harrison, a researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington research organization that focuses on black issues. "The fact that black and Hispanic wealth is a fraction of white wealth also reflects a history of discrimination." After accounting for inflation, net worth increased 17 percent for white households from 1996 to 2002 and 14 percent for Hispanic homes, to about $7,900. It fell for black households by 16 percent, to roughly $6,000. The median net worth for all American households, representing all races and ethnicities, was $59,700 in 2002, a 12 percent gain from 1996. Only white homes recouped all their losses from 2001 to 2002. Both Hispanics and blacks lost nearly 27 percent of net worth from 1999 to 2001; the next year Hispanics gained it almost all back (26 percent), while blacks were up only about 5 percent. Mr. Harrison said Hispanics were more insulated from the downturn than blacks, so they suffered less. For example, Hispanics made employment gains in lower-paid, lower-skilled areas like service and construction. Blacks were hit hard by job losses in the manufacturing industry and in professional fields, where they were victims of "last hired, first fired" policies, he said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Southwest Airlines Third-Quarter Profit Increases By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DALLAS (AP) Filed at 6:36 p.m. ET October 14, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Earns-Southwest-Airlines.html DALLAS (AP) -- Southwest Airlines Co. reported a 12 percent jump in third-quarter profits on Thursday, as its decision to buy fuel in advance helped insulate the low-cost carrier from rising oil prices. But executives warned that competitive pressures could hurt revenues in the current quarter. Southwest said Thursday that it earned $119 million, or 15 cents a share, in the July-September quarter, up from $106 million, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had forecast 12 cents per share in earnings. Revenue was $1.67 billion, up nearly 8 percent from $1.55 billion a year earlier -- but a bit below the $1.69 billion forecast by analysts. Chief executive Gary Kelly said the revenue shortfall was partly due to hurricanes that dampened travel in Florida, but mostly because carriers are adding flights, making it harder for airlines to raise fares. ``This many quarters after the official end of the recession, the industry should be performing better,'' Kelly told analysts. ``There are just too many seats chasing too few passengers. The revenues are disappointing.'' Chief financial officer Laura Wright added that fourth-quarter revenue ``could be lower than a year ago.'' The result, the officials said, will be an increasing focus on containing costs. They said, however, that Southwest, which has about 400 jets, still expects to add 29 planes next year, matching the 2004 increase. Kelly said the new planes would allow the carrier to expand service next year in Philadelphia -- if it can get gates now controlled by troubled US Airways -- or begin flying to one or two new cities. Southwest shares closed up 57 cents, or 4.2 percent, at $14.14 on the New York Stock Exchange. Southwest was the first major carrier to report third-quarter results. The airline had hedged -- or made advance purchases at fixed prices -- for most of its jet fuel purchases, which helped offset rising fuel prices. Southwest said that excluding fuel, costs were flat with a year ago and below the levels in the first half of this year. Southwest said it has hedged 80 percent of its fourth-quarter fuel prices at the equivalent of $24 a barrel, about half the current price, and 80 percent hedged next year at $25 per barrel. The carrier also saved by eliminating travel agent commissions, closing three reservation call centers and steering customers to buy tickets on its Web site. The company also eliminated about 1,000 jobs through an early retirement program, although it was unclear whether that was yet paying benefits. As a result, Southwest reversed a four-quarter trend of rising cost per mile flown by passengers, a key measurement of efficiency in the airline industry. ``They are doing a good job controlling costs, and they have to,'' said Raymond Neidl, an analyst with Calyon Securities. He also praised the company for concentrating on domestic growth, including its new service in Philadelphia, rather than jumping into international routes. Tony Cristello, an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets, said Southwest and other carriers will continue to struggle to increase revenue until a shakeout in the industry. ``That could be US Airways going away, coupled with Delta and United making material cuts in capacity, but it is going to take a substantial capacity reduction,'' he said. At Southwest, traffic as measured by miles flown by paying customers, rose 10.4 percent. Southwest has increased its fleet to 400 planes, which pushed capacity up 7 percent from a year ago. Average occupancy on the Southwest planes rose to 72.7 percent from 70.5 percent a year earlier. For the first nine months of the year, Southwest earned $258 million, or 32 cents per share on revenues of $4.40 billion. A year ago, the company earned $233 million, or 28 cents, per share on revenues of $4.05 billion. The $233 million figure excludes a $143 million government grant the airline received in 2003. ------ On the Net: Southwest: http://www.southwest.com Copyright 2004 The Associated Press ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) Justices Weigh Executions of Young Killers By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON October 14, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/14/politics/14scotus.html WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - If American society has indeed reached a consensus that the death penalty should not apply to those who kill at age 16 or 17, as the lawyer for a young Missouri murderer argued to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, no such consensus was apparent among the justices themselves. Two years after ruling 6 to 3 that the execution of mentally retarded offenders is categorically unconstitutional, the court appeared deeply divided over whether the reasoning of that decision meant that the death penalty for acts committed while a juvenile should likewise be seen as "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Missouri Supreme Court reached that conclusion by a 4-to-3 decision in August 2003, freeing Christopher Simmons from death row for a murder he committed in 1993 when he was 17. It resentenced him to life in prison without parole. Missouri appealed to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the state court lacked authority to reject the Supreme Court's last decision on the question, a 1989 ruling that upheld capital punishment for 16- and 17-year-olds. A 1988 decision barred the execution of those who killed when they were younger than 16. Seth P. Waxman, representing Mr. Simmons, argued that not only the increasing rarity of juvenile executions since 1989 but also new medical and psychological understanding of teenage immaturity validated the step the Missouri court took last year. "These developments change the constitutional calculus," Mr. Waxman, a former United States solicitor general, told the justices. The new scientific evidence, described in briefs filed by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and other professional groups, "explains and validates the consensus that society has drawn," he said. Justice Antonin Scalia countered: "If all this is so clear, why can't the legislature take it into account? All you have to do is bring these facts to the attention of the legislature." Mr. Waxman replied that the number of states that actually execute people for crimes committed as juveniles is "very small." While 19 states nominally permit the execution of 17-year-old murderers, only three states - Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma - have executed juvenile offenders in the past 10 years. Oklahoma has no juvenile offender on its death row. Virginia has one, and a jury there refused last year to impose a death sentence after finding Lee Malvo, the teenage member of a pair of Washington -area snipers, guilty of murder. Texas, with 29 inmates now on death row for juvenile crimes, accounts for more than half the executions of juvenile offenders, 13 of 22, carried out in the United States since the modern era of capital punishment began in 1976. There were 2 juvenile death sentences imposed in the United States last year and 1 so far this year, down from 14 five years ago. Justice Scalia told Mr. Waxman he was not surprised by the low numbers. They demonstrated juries' ability to take a defendant's youth into consideration, he said, adding that the question was whether to leave it to juries or to impose a "hard rule." Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist challenged Mr. Waxman on whether the scientific evidence contained in the briefs was even appropriate for the court's consideration. Noting that the studies had not been introduced at Mr. Simmons's trial, he said, "You're talking facts, and facts are ordinarily adduced at trial for cross- examination." Mr. Waxman, temporarily nonplussed, replied: "The issue for this court is not the application of law to a particular defendant, but what the Constitution requires as a matter of law." Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked Mr. Waxman whether he would lose the case if the court accepted neither the scientific evidence nor the existence of a consensus. "This is truly a case in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," Mr. Waxman replied. Four justices - John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer - have made clear in recent years their desire to invalidate the juvenile death penalty. "The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society," the four wrote in October 2002, dissenting from the court's refusal to grant a writ of habeas corpus to a Kentucky inmate, an action that required five votes. Just as clearly, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the three dissenters in the retardation case, will not vote to extend that decision to juveniles. With these facts known to most people in the courtroom, the focus of attention was on Justice Kennedy and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, both of whom rejected the challenge to juvenile executions in 1989 and at least one of whom must repudiate that precedent if Mr. Simmons is to prevail. Justice O'Connor, usually an active participant in the court's arguments, made only one comment, to James R. Layton, Missouri's state solicitor. She noted that the number of states that have rejected execution of those younger than 18 was "about the same" as the number that had rejected execution of the retarded in the years leading up to the court's ruling in that case. Of the 38 states with a death penalty, 19 have a minimum age of 18. In 2002, 18 states barred execution of the retarded. "Are we at least required to look at that?" Justice O'Connor asked. Mr. Layton replied that the retardation case, Atkins v. Virginia, took account of an "inexorable trend" among the states, and "we don't have that here." In the retardation case, there had been what the court called a "dramatic shift in the state legislative landscape," with only two states having barred execution of the retarded as recently as 1989. In fact, Justice Stevens, in his majority opinion in the retardation case, went out of his way in a footnote to contrast that shift with the much slower rate of change on the youth question. The footnote may have been necessary to hold the vote of Justice O'Connor or Justice Kennedy. On Wednesday, Justice Kennedy appeared deeply conflicted throughout the argument. He said he was concerned that drawing the line at 18 might induce teenage gangs to designate their 16- or 17-year-old members as "hit men." A brief filed by Alabama that contained grisly descriptions of murders committed by teenagers made for "chilling reading," Justice Kennedy said, adding that he wished all those who had signed briefs for Mr. Simmons "had read it before they signed on." This led Justice Stevens to say that the death penalty did not seem to have deterred those crimes, all of which took place in states that permit the execution of juvenile offenders. The case, Roper v. Simmons, No. 03-633, has attracted wide interest overseas, with briefs for Mr. Simmons signed by the European Union, the 45-member Council of Europe, and other organizations. The United States and Somalia are the only nations that have not formally repudiated executing juveniles. A brief filed by former United States diplomats asserted that the situation was an irritant in international relations. Should the court give that brief any credence, Justice Stevens asked Mr. Layton. No, Missouri's lawyer replied, the question remained one for legislatures and not courts. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 10) Militants ready for onslaught on Fallujah By Aqeel Hussein in Fallujah and Philip Sherwell (Filed: 17/10/2004) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/17/wirq17.xml&s Sheet=/portal/2004/10/17/ixportal.html Preparations for a last-ditch defence of Fallujah have been stepped up by Iraqi militants after the breakdown of negotiations with Baghdad aimed at averting an American-led onslaught on the city. Hundreds of fighters marshalled on the city's main street yesterday armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and assault rifles. Fighters are also stationed on the rooftops to repulse American-led Iraqi forces. Abdullah Janabi, one of the leaders of the rebel Shura or Islamic council that controls the city, said that negotiations had collapsed completely over demands that foreign militants be expelled from the city before Iraqi troops enter. He warned that a fiery welcome was being prepared for any "invaders". "Those who invade the city of mosques will be entering their last days," he said. "We will all give our blood to defend this place from the infidel." The American military has established a cordon around the city, ensuring that access is restricted to those on foot. The rebel checkpoints that had been established on approach roads have been withdrawn, apparently to lure the American military into the city. At dawn yesterday, the Americans launched further air strikes targeting strongholds of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Islamic terrorist held responsible for the beheading of western hostages, including the Briton Kenneth Bigley. A senior Pentagon official said that there was no plan to enter Fallujah and take back the city during the holy month of Ramadan, which began on Friday. Instead the military is determined to isolate Zarqawi and severely limit his operations. An attack will be postponed until December, but imposing a cordon around the city will tie down 2,000 crack Marine and Army troops. Meanwhile, a UN audit of spending by the American administration in Iraq, leaked overnight in Washington, revealed that half the £3.2 billion spent in the first half of this year could not be accounted for, including one payment of £800 million into a Kurdish bank account. Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 11) Britain Considers U.S. Request for More Iraq Help By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) Mon Oct 18, 2004 07:15 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6527746&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is considering a U.S. request to move troops into more potentially dangerous areas of Iraq, a politically charged move which has re-ignited anger over Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the war. Officials said Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon will confirm the request in a "holding statement" to parliament Monday, but will stress he has made no decision yet and that when he does, it will be made purely on operational grounds. "We will await firm proposals before ministers and the prime minister make a decision," Blair's spokesman said. "This is a proposal that has come from the operational level, not the political level." British troops have until now operated only in the relatively quiet Basra area of southern Iraq, where some 8,000 UK troops are stationed. Since the Iraq war began, 68 British troops have died, compared with well over 1,000 American troops. Analysts say up to 650 British troops may be moved north in response to the U.S. request to cover for U.S. units battling insurgents in the rebel-held city of Falluja and elsewhere. The most likely move would be to redeploy troops from the army's Black Watch regiment from Basra to U.S. controlled areas south of Baghdad. Commentators suggest the volatile towns of Iskandariya, Latifiya and Hilla as possible destinations. Blair's spokesman said he was not aware of any plans for UK soldiers to patrol flashpoint areas in Baghdad or Falluja. U.S. POLITICS AT PLAY? He also rejected opposition politicians' accusations that Blair was preparing to put the lives of UK troops at greater risk for the sake of President Bush. Iraq is the key issue in upcoming U.S. presidential elections in November. A central theme of Democratic challenger John Kerry's attack on Bush is that his go-it-alone approach in invading Iraq has left United States soldiers shouldering the vast majority of the post-war military burden. "If this is about any elections it is about preparing for the Iraqi elections (planned for January), not the U.S. elections," the spokesman told reporters. But Charles Kennedy, leader of Britain's third party the Liberal Democrats and a fierce opponent of the war, said it was difficult to see why Washington thought the redeployment of a British unit of around 650 troops -- just 0.5 percent of the total coalition troops in Iraq -- was so vital at this time. He said Britain should be planning its withdrawal from Iraq, not becoming more deeply involved. "This, far from being an exit strategy, runs the risk of being an ensnarement strategy that drags Britain further into the mire," he told BBC radio. Any prospect of a sharp rise in British casualties would be acutely uncomfortable for Blair, whose unpopular decision to join President Bush in the March 2003 invasion has hit his ratings and divided his party. Thousands of anti-war protesters marched though London on Sunday to demand UK troops withdraw from Iraq altogether. (c) Copyright Reuters 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 12) Iraq to Widen Arms Amnesty, Bring Falluja to Heel By Alistair Lyon BAGHDAD (Reuters) Mon Oct 18, 2004 08:27 AM ET http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6528800&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's interim government will declare a nationwide arms amnesty next week, but insists the city of Falluja must turn in foreign militants or face assault, National Security Adviser Kassim Daoud said Monday. Daoud would not be drawn on the timing of a Falluja offensive if the city did not hand over militants led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America's top enemy in Iraq. "We have a timetable and we will stick to it," he told Reuters. U.S. forces released overnight Falluja's chief negotiator, whom they detained Friday, after day-long battles and air strikes on the outskirts of the rebel-held Sunni Muslim stronghold west of Baghdad. The interim government has vowed to crack down on insurgents and pacify Iraq before elections due in January. "Next week, we will announce a nationwide arms collection drive," said Daoud, but gave few details of the arms amnesty. In a country awash in weaponry, Iraqis are permitted to keep personal guns, such as pistols and assault rifles, at home. Previous gun amnesties since last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have involved heavier weapons. Daoud said a cash-for-weapons scheme already under way in Baghdad's Sadr City district, a stronghold for Shi'ite militants, had been extended to Thursday. He said many people still wanted to disarm in Sadr City. "It would not be fair to search houses now when these people have not had enough time to turn over their weapons." Loyalists of fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had been fighting U.S. troops in Sadr City before the arms handover was agreed. Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni insurgency, is an even tougher challenge for the interim government and its U.S. backers. "I think the residents of Falluja don't want this sort of peace. They want real peace, not a peace that stabs in the back and strikes and destroys homes and kills women," Falluja representative Khaled al-Jumaili said after his release. U.S. marines detained the bearded cleric Friday while he was taking his family out of the city for safety. QUEST FOR ZARQAWI Residents said Falluja was relatively quiet after Sunday's fierce battles, in which hospital officials said four civilians were killed and 12 wounded. A child was among the dead. Falluja residents, enraged by U.S. air strikes that they say kill civilians, deny knowledge of Zarqawi's network. Asked what evidence the government has that Zarqawi's group is operating in Falluja, Daoud said: "There are many of his followers, Jihadists (holy warriors). The proof is there." Jumaili said the hunt for Zarqawi was a pretext to attack Falluja, comparing it to U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before last year's invasion. Zarqawi, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, has declared loyalty to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for the first time, according to a statement posted on the Internet. "We announce that the Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Holy War) Group, its prince and soldiers, have pledged allegiance to the sheikh of the mujahideen Osama bin Laden," said the statement purportedly from Zarqawi's group. Washington says Zarqawi is al Qaeda's link to Iraq but the statement was the first by the group to announce its allegiance to bin Laden's network, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. cities. Britain is considering a U.S. request to move troops now based in southern Iraq into more potentially dangerous areas to cover for U.S. units battling rebels in Falluja and elsewhere. Officials say Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon will confirm the request to parliament later Monday, but will stress he has made no decision yet. Any such deployment would reignite anger in Britain over Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for the war. Insurgents struck at Iraq's fledgling security forces again with a car bomb blast near a Baghdad cafe used by Iraqi police. The U.S. military said eight people were killed, including a policeman, and 28 wounded, in the Sunday night attack. Earlier, a car bomb that blew up in traffic killed five people and wounded 15 in the northern city of Mosul. The beheaded body of an Iraqi translator employed by U.S. troops was found near Baiji, north of Baghdad, police said. An Australian television journalist was held hostage for 24 hours at the weekend before being released unharmed. (c) Copyright Reuters 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 13) Broad Use of Harsh Tactics Is Described at Cuba Base By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/politics/17gitmo.html WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - Many detainees at Guantánamo Bay were regularly subjected to harsh and coercive treatment, several people who worked in the prison said in recent interviews, despite longstanding assertions by military officials that such treatment had not occurred except in some isolated cases. The people, military guards, intelligence agents and others, described in interviews with The New York Times a range of procedures that included treatment they said was highly abusive occurring over a long period of time, as well as rewards for prisoners who cooperated with interrogators. One regular procedure that was described by people who worked at Camp Delta, the main prison facility at the naval base in Cuba, was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air-conditioning was turned up to maximum levels, said one military official who witnessed the procedure. The official said that was intended to make the detainees uncomfortable, as they were accustomed to high temperatures both in their native countries and their cells. Such sessions could last up to 14 hours with breaks, said the official, who described the treatment after being contacted by The Times. "It fried them,'' the official said, who said that anger over the treatment the prisoners endured was the reason for speaking with a reporter. Another person familiar with the procedure who was contacted by The Times said: "They were very wobbly. They came back to their cells and were just completely out of it.'' The new information comes from a number of people, some of whom witnessed or participated in the techniques and others who were in a position to know the details of the operation and corroborate their accounts. Those who spoke of the interrogation practices at the naval base did so under the condition that their identities not be revealed. While some said it was because they remained on active duty, they all said that being publicly identified would endanger their futures. Although some former prisoners have said they saw and experienced mistreatment at Guantánamo, this is the first time that people who worked there have provided detailed accounts of some interrogation procedures. One intelligence official said most of the intense interrogation was focused on a group of detainees known as the "Dirty 30'' and believed to be the best potential sources of information. In August, a report commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld found that tough techniques approved by the government were rarely used, but the sources described a broader pattern that went beyond even the aggressive techniques that were permissible. The issue of what were permissible interrogation techniques has produced a vigorous debate within the government that burst into the open with reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and is now the subject of several investigations. Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan, the administration has wrestled with the issue of what techniques are permissible, with many arguing that the campaign against terrorism should entitle them to greater leeway. Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel said, for example, in one memorandum that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and not suitable for the war against terrorism. David Sheffer, a senior State Department human rights official in the Clinton administration who teaches law at George Washington University, said the procedure of shackling prisoners to the floor in a state of undress while playing loud music - the Guantánamo sources said it included the bands Limp Bizkit and Rage Against the Machine, and the rapper Eminem - and lights clearly constituted torture. "I don't think there's any question that treatment of that character satisfies the severe pain and suffering requirement, be it physical or mental, that is provided for in the Convention Against Torture,'' Mr. Sheffer said. Pentagon officials would not comment on the details of the allegations. Lt. Cmdr. Alvin Plexico issued a Defense Department statement in response to questions, saying that the military was providing a "safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantánamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism.'' The statement said: "Guantánamo guards provide an environment that is stable, secure, safe and humane. And it is that environment that sets the conditions for interrogators to work successfully and to gain valuable information from detainees because they have built a relationship of trust, not fear.'' The sources portrayed a system of punishment and reward, with prisoners who were favored for their cooperation with interrogators given the privilege of spending time in a large room nicknamed "the love shack'' by the guards. In that room, they were free to relax and had access to magazines, books, a television and a video player and some R-rated movies, along with the use of a water pipe to smoke aromatic tobaccos. They were also occasionally given milkshakes and hamburgers from the McDonald's on the base. The Pentagon said the information gathered from the detainees "has undoubtedly saved the lives of our soldiers in the field,'' adding: "And that information also saves the lives of innocent civilians at home and abroad. At Guantánamo we are holding and interrogating people that are a clear danger to the U.S. and our allies and they are providing valuable information in the war on terrorism.'' Although many critics of the detentions at Guantánamo have said that the majority of the roughly 590 inmates are low-level fighters who have little intelligence to impart, Pentagon and intelligence officials have insisted that the facility houses many dangerous veteran terrorists and officials of Al Qaeda. The intelligence official said that many of those imprisoned at Guantánamo had valuable information but that it was not always clear what their standing in Al Qaeda was. The official said the first four detainees now facing war crimes charges before a military tribunal at the base were specifically chosen because they had not been harshly treated and therefore would be less likely to make any embarrassing allegations. The people who worked at the prison also described as common another procedure in which an inmate was awakened, subjected to an interrogation in a facility known as the Gold Building, then returned to a different cell. As soon as the guards determined the inmate had fallen into a deep sleep, he was awakened again for interrogation after which he would be returned to yet a different cell. This could happen five or six times during a night, they said. Much of the harsh treatment described by the sources was said to have occurred as recently as the early months of this year. After the scandal about mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became public in April, all harsh techniques were abruptly suspended, they said. The new accounts of mistreatment at Guantánamo provide fresh evidence about how practices there may have contributed to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. One independent military panel said in a report that the approach used at Guantánamo had "migrated to Abu Ghraib. The vigorous debate within the administration about what techniques were permissible in interrogations was set off when the Justice Department provided a series of memorandums to the White House and Defense Department providing narrow definitions of torture. In February 2002, Mr. Bush ordered that the prisoners at Guantánamo be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate with military necessity, in a manner consistent with'' the Geneva Conventions. In March 2002, a team of administration lawyers accepted the Justice Department's view, concluding in a memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either the Convention Against Torture or a federal antitorture statute because he had the authority to protect the nation from terrorism. When some of the memorandums were disclosed, the administration tried to distance itself from the rationale for the harsher treatment. At the request of military intelligence officials who complained of tenacious resistance by some subjects, Mr. Rumsfeld approved a list of 16 techniques for use at Guantánamo in addition to the 17 methods in the Army Field Manual in December 2002. But he suspended those approvals in January 2003 after some military lawyers complained they were excessive and possibly unlawful. In April 2003, after a review, Mr. Rumsfeld issued a final policy approving of 24 techniques, some of which needed his permission to be used. But the approved techniques did not explicitly cover some that were used, according to the new accounts. The only time that using loud music and lights seems to appear in the documents, for example, is as a proposal that seems never to have been adopted. The April 16 memorandum allows interrogators to place a detainee "in a setting that may be less comfortable'' but should not "constitute a substantial change in environmental quality.'' Officials said the guards' patience was often stretched, especially when inmates threw human waste at the military police officers, a frequent occurrence. The guards, for their part, had their own tricks, including replacing the prayer oil in little bottles given to the inmates with a caustic pine-smelling floor cleaner. An August 2004 report by a panel headed by James R. Schlesinger, the former defense secretary, said the harsher approved techniques on Mr. Rumsfeld's list were used on only two occasions. In addition, the report said, there were about eight abuses by guards at Guantánamo that occurred and were investigated. In guided tours of Guantánamo provided to the news media and members of Congress, the military authorities contended that the system of rewards and punishments affected only issues like whether the inmates could be deprived of books, blankets and toilet articles. The interrogation sessions themselves, the officials consistently said, did not employ any harsh treatment but were devised only to build a trusting relationship between the interrogator and the detainee. Copyright 2004 The New York Times ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 14) 'If this isn't genocide, then what on earth is?' Lord Alton reports on the killings, rape, burnings and looting that continue unabated in Darfur in an impassioned plea for action to the Prime Minister 18 October 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=573217 'If this isn't genocide, then what on earth is?' Leading article: Relief for Darfur has been delayed far too long While the international community procrastinated last week about whether events in Darfur constitute genocide, I visited the Ardamata refugee camp in Geneina, where 30,000 people are sheltering. Tribal leaders there testified to a campaign of killing, rape, burning and looting by the Janjaweed militias which have killed an estimated 70,000 people and displaced 1.4 million others. Three months ago, the UN described the situation in Darfur as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". On my two-day visit, I found that nothing much has changed. The government of Sudan has reneged on its promise to disarm the Janjaweed. Their campaign has the sole objective of eradicating the black tribes and installing the Arabs in their place. If this isn't genocide, then it's difficult to imagine what on earth is. I have sent a full report to Tony Blair and will ask a question about Darfur in the House of Lords today. My report is a catalogue of systematic violence driven by ethnic hatred and aided by the Sudanese regime. We heard first-hand accounts of the rape of girls as young as 10 and women as old as 80. Men wept as they recounted the humiliations and killings. The report is on the website of the human rights group the Jubilee Campaign, which arranged the visit (www.jubileecampaign.co.uk). We joined a group of 17 women sitting in the shade of a tree, drinking coffee. Most were widows, and most had also lost fathers, brothers and sons. They need firewood for cooking and grass for their animals, and are thus forced to go beyond the camp. They had all, without exception, been the victims of attack and rape by the Janjaweed. Although they are clearly traumatised by the daily risks they run, they speak philosophically about it: "If our men go out, they die. If we go, we are raped. That's the choice." Hawry, 35, told us that when her village was attacked, the men "harassed and beat" the women and girls before they rode off. These are euphemisms for rape; in their society, it is an unmentionable subject, bringing shame and humiliation on the victim and her family. We were told that the "Arabs" carried razor blades and sharp knives to cut open the atrophied vaginas of old women before they raped them. When the Janjaweed had gone, Hawry said, the women abandoned the village. "My family once had 88 head of cattle, but I put one baby around my neck and another child on my back, and I started walking." Her other three children had to walk for the next eight days. An immeasurable problem will be the impact of so many babies born due to rape. While the women eventually opened up about the attacks by the militias, they would not even discuss what the future holds for the children. "They want to dilute our blood," one woman said. "They hate black people." A traumatised, helpless mood of resignation simmers in the camps. Sometimes it boils over, as, for instance, at Otash camp, near Nyala, where a policeman was lynched. A woman had recognised him as one of those who massacred her family I understand why Tony Blair wanted face-to-face discussions with President Omar al-Bashir when he visited Khartoum this month. But before we shake too many hands in Sudan we should remember the blood on them. Britain refuses to follow America's lead in saying that what is happening in Darfur is genocide. The Government's line is that it would not help it in its efforts to put pressure on the Sudanese Government. Yet Britain is one of 135 signatories to the 1949 Geneva Convention Against Genocide. This is not merely declamatory, it places a duty on the signatories to "prevent and protect" and subsequently to prosecute and to bring to justice those who commit crimes against humanity. My visit to Africa also included Rwanda where, 10 years ago, 800,000 people died in 100 days as the international community looked on. I left Darfur fearing that we are sleepwalking into another Rwanda. There are no UN troops in Darfur - just a handful of African Union soldiers to protect the monitors. Poignantly, the first country to send troops was Rwanda. The country's President, Paul Kagame, told me that they decided to do this because they can see the parallels with what happened to them. The terrified tribal leaders that we met in Darfur believe that the mere presence of monitors and international non-governmental organisations will prevent incursions by the Janjaweed. Rwanda illustrates the dangers of such illusions. Over one million people have been herded into camps run by the Government. Some of the officers who patrol the camps are Janjaweed militiamen in police uniforms. The elders said that security remains their greatest concern. They called for the disarmament of the Janjaweed; the restoration of looted livestock; the return or rebuilding of property; a resolution of the land issue and freedom to move about. Above all, they told us, the genocide must end. One, Sheik De Allah, said poignantly: "We are a simple people. We know our farms and cattle and that's all we want. The Government created Janjaweed and has created this situation. We are desperate and pray that the international community will intervene." Lord Alton of Liverpool is an independent crossbench peer and a founder of the Jubilee Campaign. (c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 15) Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us? Comment Naomi Klein Iraqis are still being forced to pay for crimes committed by Saddam The Guardian Saturday October 16, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1328664,00.html Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside- down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world. If that seems backwards, it's because it is. Iraqis have never been awarded reparations for any of the crimes they suffered under Saddam, or the brutal sanctions regime that claimed the lives of at least half a million people, or the US-led invasion, which the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently called "illegal". Instead, Iraqis are still being forced to pay reparations for crimes committed by their former dictator. Quite apart from its crushing $125bn sovereign debt, Iraq has paid $18.8bn in reparations stemming from Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. This is not in itself surprising: as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam agreed to pay damages stemming from the invasion. More than 50 countries have made claims, with most of the money awarded to Kuwait. What is surprising is that even after Saddam was overthrown, the payments from Iraq have continued. Since Saddam was toppled in April, Iraq has paid out $1.8bn in reparations to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), the Geneva-based quasi tribunal that assesses claims and disburses awards. Of those payments, $37m have gone to Britain and $32.8m have gone to the United States. That's right: in the past 18 months, Iraq's occupiers have collected $69.8m in reparation payments from the desperate people they have been occupying. But it gets worse: the vast majority of those payments, 78%, have gone to multinational corporations, according to statistics on the UNCC website. Away from media scrutiny, this has been going on for years. Of course there are many legitimate claims for losses that have come before the UNCC: payments have gone to Kuwaitis who have lost loved ones, limbs, and property to Saddam's forces. But much larger awards have gone to corporations: of the total amount the UNCC has awarded in Gulf war reparations, $21.5bn has gone to the oil industry alone. Jean-Claude Aimé, the UN diplomat who headed the UNCC until December 2000, publicly questioned the practice. "This is the first time as far as I know that the UN is engaged in retrieving lost corporate assets and profits," he told the Wall Street Journal in 1997, and then mused: "I often wonder at the correctness of that." But the UNCC's corporate handouts only accelerated. Here is a small sample of who has been getting "reparation" awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestlé ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they "lost profits" or, in the case of American Express, experienced a "decline in business" because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505m in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12% of that reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq. The fact that Iraqis have been paying reparations to their occupiers is all the more shocking in the context of how little these countries have actually spent on aid in Iraq. Despite the $18.4bn of US tax dollars allocated for Iraq's reconstruction, the Washington Post estimates that only $29m has been spent on water, sanitation, health, roads, bridges, and public safety combined. And in July (the latest figure available), the Department of Defence estimated that only $4m had been spent compensating Iraqis who had been injured, or who lost family members or property as a direct result of the occupation - a fraction of what the US has collected from Iraq in reparations since its occupation began. For years there have been complaints about the UNCC being used as a slush fund for multinationals and rich oil emirates - a backdoor way for corporations to collect the money they were prevented from making as a result of the sanctions against Iraq. During the Saddam years, these concerns received little attention, for obvious reasons. But now Saddam is gone and the slush fund survives. And every dollar sent to Geneva is a dollar not spent on humanitarian aid and reconstruction Iraq. Furthermore, if post-Saddam Iraq had not been forced to pay these reparations, it could have avoided the $437m emergency loan that the International Monetary Fund approved on September 29. With all the talk of forgiving Iraq's debts, the country is actually being pushed deeper into the hole, forced to borrow money from the IMF, and to accept all of the conditions and restrictions that come along with those loans. The UNCC, meanwhile, continues to assess claims and make new awards: $377m worth of new claims were awarded last month alone. Fortunately, there is a simple way to put an end to these grotesque corporate subsidies. According to United Nations security council resolution 687, which created the reparations programme, payments from Iraq must take into account "the requirements of the people of Iraq, Iraq's payment capacity, and the needs of the Iraqi economy". If a single one of these three issues were genuinely taken into account, the security council would vote to put an end to these payouts tomorrow. That is the demand of Jubilee Iraq, a debt relief organisation based in London. Reparations are owed to the victims of Saddam Hussein, the group argues - both in Iraq and in Kuwait. But the people of Iraq, who were themselves Saddam's primary victims, should not be paying them. Instead, reparations should be the responsibility of the governments that loaned billions to Saddam, knowing the money was being spent on weapons so he could wage war on his neighbours and his own people. "If justice, and not power, prevailed in international affairs, then Saddam's creditors would be paying reparations to Kuwait as well as far greater reparations to the Iraqi people," says Justin Alexander, coordinator of Jubilee Iraq. Right now precisely the opposite is happening: instead of flowing into Iraq, reparations are flowing out. It's time for the tide to turn. ·Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo, and Fences and Windows Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 16) Indian Country Today Denver police arrest 245 for blocking Columbus Day Parade by: Brenda Norrell DENVER - Calling it a ''Convoy of Conquest,'' American Indian Movement members and their allies, including Western Shoshone Carrie Dann, blocked the Columbus Day Parade in a protest of the Colorado holiday that represents genocide and the theft of homelands for indigenous people in the Americas. ''America continues to fight the 'Indian wars' and one expression of that is Columbus Day,'' AIM organizer Glenn Morris told Indian Country Today. Protesters focused on exposing the root of genocide in America as they were arrested for blocking the path of the Sons of Italy's Columbus Day Parade of bikers, limos and semi-trucks. Denver police arrested 245 people, including 44 juveniles. Morris said Indian children as young as seven and eight chose to be arrested because of the injustice they face in U.S. schools. ''Every year they confront the silence of their ancestors' voices in their history classes.'' Further, Morris said when the 245 cases go to court, American Indians and their allies will not be the ones on trial. ''We intend to put Columbus on trial, the city of Denver on trial and the state of Colorado and the United States on trial for celebrating genocide.'' The protesters arrested included the event organizers, Morris, Osage professor Tink Tinker, activist Nita Gonzales, professor Ward Churchill and activist TroyLynn Yellowwood. Charges included interference, failure to comply, loitering and blocking a public street. The protesters, led by Dann and Lakota from the ''Stop Lewis and Clark'' movement in South Dakota, first gathered at the state capitol before blocking the parade route Oct. 9. Facing 600 Denver police, many armed with riot gear and pepper spray, hundreds refused to move and were arrested without incident and booked. They were released from jail in the afternoon at about 3 p.m. Morris pointed out that Colorado is the perfect place to halt Columbus Day because Colorado was the first to proclaim it as a state holiday in 1907. Far from being rhetoric, Morris said the bedrock of Columbus Day is the Doctrine of Discovery of 1492, which is the basis of all federal Indian law. Morris, professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Denver, said Indian lands have been reduced from 2 billion to 50 million acres, based on this doctrine. Columbus advanced and expanded the arrogant European Doctrine of Discovery, claiming that superior, civilized, Christian Europeans had the right to seize and appropriate indigenous peoples territories and resources. This legacy of Columbus continues today and allows the U.S. government to ''lose'' between $40 and $100 billion that the U.S. was to administer for the benefit of individual American Indians. The government has admitted that it deliberately destroyed evidence in the case, and it appears that the U.S. has no intention of finding or accounting for the money that it has stolen, he said. This doctrine has been embedded into racist Federal Indian Law, and is apparent today in the case of the Western Shoshone in Nevada and the Lakota in the Black Hills of South Dakota. ''We're not talking about a hypothetical theory to Native people.'' Morris said the result of the Doctrine of Discovery was the loss of land and lives for Indian people. Today, the rhetoric of ''Indian wars'' is used in Iraq by the United States military as it seeks to take control of territory. ''All hostile territory in Iraq is still called 'Indian country.' People who fraternize with Iraqi are said to be 'going Native.''' Columbus Day protesters followed the philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., who expressed the hope that direct action would lead to negotiations. In Denver, the Transform Columbus Day Alliance struggles to bring a halt to the Colorado holiday. Other states, including South Dakota, have replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day. Western Shoshone Carrie Dann, struggling with other Western Shoshone to protect their homelands in Nevada, and the Red Earth Women's Alliance helped organize and lead the marches, one in a local park on Oct. 8 and the culminating protest in downtown Denver on Oct. 9. ''Our arrests are designed to expose a corrupt educational, legal and political system that refuses to describe the destruction of millions of indigenous people at the hands of Columbus for what it is: Genocide,'' Colorado AIM said in a statement after the arrests. The action was to ''expose such moral and legal bankruptcy, and we actively refuse to cooperate with legalized murder and theft.'' Morris pointed out the facts: Christopher Columbus was a slave trader. Columbus was involved in trading African slaves prior to his voyage to the Americas in 1492. Columbus was personally responsible for overseeing a colonial administration that directly led to the death of millions of indigenous people. Father Bartolome de Las Casas, an eyewitness and a contemporary of Columbus, estimated that 15 million indigenous people died in the Caribbean. Prior to the march, American Indians urged a letter-writing campaign to local newspapers, including the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, accusing both papers of failing to provide balanced coverage of the issues. Italian-Americans wrote letters pointing out that not all Italians in this country support Columbus and many stand with Indian protesters. In preparation of a protest, Mohandas K. Gandhi was quoted: ''Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.'' In 2003, Colorado AIM and allies were led by the late American Indian elder Wallace Black Elk and Richard Costaldo, a paralyzed Italian-American survivor of the Columbine massacre. They turned their backs on the parade and walked away. However, this year, they said was a year for direct action. ''In that spirit, we commend the organizers of the Festival Italiano, which was held in Lakewood on Sept. 25 - 26,'' Colorado AIM said, pointing out that it is the type of festival that fosters unity and understanding.
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