World Globalisation Newswire Archive

On Thursday in Oxford Town Hall we heard the most extraordinary and chilling testimony from a man who lives under the threat of imminent death. Luis "Lucho" Hernandez is the President of the main trade union (SINTRAEMCALI) in Colombia's third city, Cali. At the end of August a plot was discovered to assassinate leading left politicians, human rights defenders and trade union leaders, a plot whose tentacles reach to the top of the Colombian government, as far as President Uribe himself. Lucho was one of the people listed for murder.
In his speech to us, Lucho Hernandez did not dwell on the threat to himself, but gave a riveting account of the background reasons for the assassinations of over 3,500 trade union leaders in Colombia in the last 15 years. He sketched out graphically the reasons for this violence - the ruthless IMF/WTO-prescribed privatisation of the Colombian economy, which can only be carried out by killing the opposition to it. The British government is Colombia's second biggest donor of military aid after the US, and Tony Blair one of President Uribe's strongest supporters.

The document below is a necessarily detailed account that gives incontrovertible proof of this most recent assassination plan, and the imminent threat to the lives of a number of named individuals, including Lucho. Please read it and please act with the greatest urgency.

Maarten was extradited to Sweden on 1st of September and is now in jail waiting for the trial. If you are interested to show solidarity to Maarten and other Gothenburg prisoners in your town, contact the support group: 00-31(0)6-42356735, e-mail:  info@steunmaarten.org

ESF Newsletter

"The new administration elected in November 2004 must systematically reduce the deficits. Otherwise an inflation threatens. America within the next two years could lead into a recession.."

In 1988, soon after signing a ceasefire with Iraq, the Iranian government decided to crush all political opposition and purge its prisons of troublesome elements. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a secret ruling advising the execution of "fighters against God" and all leftists as "apostates from Islam."

The Human rights group "Human Rights in China (HRIC)" reports that an unknown number of petitioners, estimated around 36 000 - are removed from Bejing, held in (a) "detention camp"(s) and many brutally beaten and abused.
Many of the petitions are focusing on violation of labour rights, land rights, and other human rights issues. Many were urging the release of Ye Guozhu -- a leading activist who was recently arrested for applying to organise a 10,000-strong rally in Beijing. Other petition issues are also the forced eviction of parts of Bejing ahead of the Olympic Games.
"The right to petition is guaranteed in Chinas constitution, with no exceptions made for major events," says HRIC president.

We would like to invite you to participate in a new collaborative website to support the struggle against bilateral free trade and investment agreements:
www.bilaterals.org.

A collaborative website to support struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements has been launched at www.bilaterals.org

A reception to launch the UK tour of SINTRAEMCALI President, Luis Hernandez, will be held next Friday evening at the Union Tavern.

Israel-Palestine: Appeal from Greek comrades for an international anarchist day of action. Greece, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brasil and Australia are already on the move!

Despite all the expectations to deepen the Bolivarian process, the president Hugo Chavés Frias, made 2 partnership with the multinational companies Chevron-Texaco and Microsoft. Both agreements were signed before the referedum took place, but were as deliberately mugged by the progressive media and ignored by the conservative media.

One of them is a binacional gasoduto, sponsor by the Venezuela government and the Colombia government and coordinated by the American multinational Chevron-Texaco. Acording to Chavéz it´s a “direct way out of this giant asian market”. To construct the gasoduto, Venezuela volunteer to enter in the Plan Pueblo Panamá, a collection of infrastructure with the objective to respond to the American multinationals needs.

Parallel to that, the Venezuela´s government, via the education ministry, signed with Microsoft a contract to provide software to the schools across the country, contradicting the incentive policy of free software, which the government had adopted until Felipe Péres left the Planification and Development Ministry. According to Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU movement (free software): “The Venezuela´s government just made a critical error, which consequences will give control of computing to a global corporation: make a contract with Microsoft to use the program in the schools.”

The silence and the non-resistence of the popular movements just amplified this situation, disarticulated by the expectations of the left government speech. In case Chavéz continue with immune posture before popular movements, we will see those movements fight against the local bourgeoisie just to let a free way to the global bourgeoisie, which has no problem to negotiate with the “bolivarian revolution”.

Links :
Indymedia Brazil [pt]
Rebeldia magazine [es]
Venezuela: gasoduto binacional e Chevron Texaco [pt]
Mais do que nenhum lugar, as escolas devem usar software livre [pt]

links to our mayday 04 stuff, demo and centre- irelands first
proposals for "global net project" for esf and beyond
communication actions

Econoticiasbolivia.com (La Paz, 16th of august 2004) - In the early morning of 16th of august hundreds of farmers and communards of El Chore in the northeast of Bolivia occupied the facilities of the multinational company British Petroleum and paralyzed the oil production. The occupation of the oil field marks the beginning of a new wave of protests, which develop in the rural area of Bolivia: further actions are carried out in the south of the country, where the gas export to Argentina is threatened to get interrrupted, while marches to La Paz are prepared by landless farmers from different regions . after La Paz.

click on the link-

agit prop video

"The rules of social state restraint of wild capitalism are ignored. The class struggle from above has long been a fact since the coalition of capital with the government is fairly stable and the media play along. Resistance is inevitable because more is at stake than working hours and wages, namely the dignity of people and balance in the globalized world.. An economic literacy must be part of the enlightenment project.."

The workers of Brukman, one of about 200 self-managed factories in Argentina, need your help. Although they recovered their factory at the beginning of 2004 and are running it again, the factory has been damaged by police action, and many of the machines are not running at full capacity due to lack of spare parts and repair manuals.

From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, 'the North' from Seattle to Genova, and the 'War on Terror' in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq, comes a feature-length documentary from Big Noise Films. The product of over two years of filming on the inside of movements on five continents, "The Fourth World War" is a film that would have been unimaginable at any other moment in history. Directed by the makers of "This Is What Democracy Looks Like" and "Zapatista" , produced through a global network of independent media and activist groups, it is a truly global film from and for our global movement.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and 7 other Republican senators, have proposed splitting the US CIA into three separate agencies, all under one National Intelligence Service--has the far right gone mad?

Entrepreneurial freedom is introduced as a new basic right. Art 14 of the German consti-tution "Property obligates and should serve the well-being of the general public" is not followed.. Which God is worshipped in the draft of the EU constitution? Which God should govern us in the future? It is the god of the neoliberals, of corporations. People are sacrificed to the idol of the open market economy with free competition.