39th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium: The Struggle Continues

Commentary by Carlos Montes

Carlos Montes is a veteran fighter in the Chicano Liberation movement. He was a founder of the Brown Berets and the Chicano Moratorium. Montes is currently active in the Southern California Immigration Coalition, the East L.A.-based Latinos against War and with CSO, which organizes parents in the East Los Angeles area to fight against the privatization of public education in Los Angeles Unified School District.

The following commentary is from Fight Back! News:

Los Angeles, CA – Today, Aug. 29, 2009, shows that our people are continuing the fight for equality and self-determination. It was demonstrated by the many groups that were present today at Salazar Park, including the student group MECHA and the new Brown Berets, to commemorate the historic day in 1970 when over 20,000 Chicanos marched down historic Whittier Boulevard in East L.A. to protest the war in Vietnam and the high casualty rate of Chicanos. The mass peaceful rally in 1970 was attacked by the Los Angeles Police Department and the sheriffs. Ruben Salazar, news director for KMEX, was killed, along with Angel Diaz and Lynn Ward. A similar example of repression took place on May 1, 2007 when the LAPD attacked a pro-immigrant rights rally at MacArthur Park.

This year’s event was organized by the local Chicano Moratorium Committee and had the backing of the East L.A.-based Latinos Against War. In Latinos Against War, we organize against the war in Afghanistan and against the military recruiters in our high schools. We support self-determination for Chicanos in the Southwest, the Chicano nation of Aztlan. Our strategy is working with community-based groups like the CSO to organize poor and working class Chicanos in our community to fight for our rights. This means fighting for better education, living conditions, for the rights of our people displaced by poverty in Mexico and Central America now living here and for full legalization.

The campaign “Escuelas Si, Guerra No,” (Schools Yes, No War) of CSO recently won the opening of a new high school in Boyle Heights. The Mendez Learning Complex had an open house today, and will open September 2009. The new school is a concrete victory won after years of struggle to relieve overcrowding at Roosevelt High School and to stop the U.S. military recruiters on high school campuses in East L.A. This is the way to build the annual Chicano Moratorium event that recently has had less participation, especially from the community.

Latinos against War also condemns and exposes the long history of U.S. military and political intervention in Mexico, Central and Latin America. For example many people do not know that U.S. Army General Pershing led an intervention during the Mexican Revolution to attack the forces of our famous hero General Francisco Villa; of course the U.S. failed.

In Central America the U.S. supported the brutal military regimes that killed many of their own people, who were struggling for democracy and self-determination. Now we have the example of Venezuela and Bolivia whose people have supported and elected leaders who defend sovereignty and work to improve the lives of the many poor in their countries. But U.S. intervention continues to sneak in – like in Colombia, which will allow the U.S. military to use several bases under the guise of fighting the war on drugs. But we all know it’s a war against the revolutionary forces in Colombia like the FARC, and to attack the independent and sovereign nations like Venezuela. The U.S. is also giving billions to the Mexican army under the Plan Merida to fight the drug war, but the army commits many human rights violations against the Mexican people.

So on this anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, we commemorate a proud past of struggle and stand committed to a future where our people achieve liberation and self-determination.

What is Happening in Honduras?

From the International Action Center

On June 28, 2009, the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was taken from his house by the country’s military at gunpoint and taken outside the country. An illegitimate and criminal government was installed with Raoberto Micheletti as its President.

It has since then ruled by extreme force and repression of the masses, with constant curfews, mass detentions, assassinations and multiple acts of violence perpetrated by the police and the army who have established in Honduras a state of siege where human rights violations are committed constantly against the majority of the people who are demonstrating against the coup. It has violated as well the freedom of expression, closing radio and TV stations that were reporting what was happening.

In spite of the unrelenting repression, under tear gases and live ammunition that so far have killed 8 people, injured scores and detained more than 1,500, the people, organized under the National Popular Front of Resistance against the Coup, have been on the streets daily since June 28 courageously demonstrating to bring back their elected President Zelaya, to restore constitutionality in the country and for their right to have a Constitutional Assembly to forge the future that they want in their own country.

If so many people are against the coup, why is the Micheletti government still in power?

THE ONLY SUPPORT THAT HOLDS THE COUP D’ETAT IN HONDURAS AND PREVENTS THE RETURN OF DEMOCRACY IN THAT COUNTRY IS THE UNITED STATES. The U.S. is Honduras’ major trading partner and has used that country as its military outpost against the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Revolutions in the 80′s. It is in Honduras where the criminal “Contras” operated, trained by the infamous School of the Americas. The Honduran military is intimately linked to the Pentagon from which receives every kind of material aid and weapons, assistance in training, surveillance and military actions.

The Obama administration who claims to be on the side of democracy, says the U.S. should not intervene in Honduras. But they are intervening by refusing to recall its ambassador and by keeping the flow of aid and support to the criminal government.

Why should we be concerned here in the United States?

The people in the U.S. are part of the international community and what affects other countries, affects us here. Money spent in aiding criminals abroad is taken from the budgets for education, healthcare, housing and essential needs here. We need a culture of peace for our children, otherwise violence will perpetuate in this country.

What can I do?

The mainstream media lies about what is happening in Honduras. Write to the newspapers and demand that truth be told. Write letters to the editor. Talk to your family, friends, and coworkers about it. The same negative way that the media portrays poor people, people of color, workers demanding fair wages here, they portray our brothers and sisters in Honduras and elsewhere. We have more in common with the people in Honduras resisting the coup than with the bosses of AIG, Bank of America, General Motors and other big companies in the U.S.

Sign the online email petition to Obama, Clinton, Biden, Congress, the U.N. and the media at: http://www.iacenter.org/honduraspetition

For more information : International Action Center; 815 S. 48 th St., Philadelphia, PA 19143; 215-724-1618 PhillyIAC@peoplesmail.net

Hezbollah Rejects New Israeli Threats

By Joyce Chediac and Paul Wilcox writing for Workers World.

Huge crowd outside Beirut commemorates defeat of Israel’s 2006 invasion.

The pride was palpable and the emotion stirring. It was the pride of a people who have twice freed their land from U.S.-backed Israeli forces.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children gathered in this poor neighborhood south of Beirut on Aug. 14 to stand firm against a new round of Israeli threats to Lebanon. They also marked the anniversary of the Lebanese people’s victory over the U.S.-backed Israeli invasion, siege and bombardment of their country in 2006.

The Divine Victory rally called by Hezbollah, Lebanon’s national resistance movement, took place in the Shia suburb of Dahia, which was punished brutally by Israeli bombers three years ago.

Just days before the planned rally, several Israeli officials—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—challenged Hezbollah’s right to have arms and threatened more violence against Hezbollah and Lebanon. Israel has invaded Lebanon nine times since 1945, but was driven out by the Lebanese people in 2000 and again in 2006.

Addressing the rally via a satellite television hookup, Hezbollah General Secretary Sayyed Hassan Nasrullah answered these threats. He called Hezbollah’s forces “deterrent,” adding, “We do not want war, but we are not afraid of it, and we say to you: If you bomb Beirut or its suburb, we will bomb Tel Aviv.”

Nasrullah said that the strength of the Hezbollah movement was not its weapons but the unity of the Lebanese people and the determination of its supporters. If the Aug. 14 rally was any indication, Hezbollah’s support among Lebanese people, particularly the oppressed Shiite population, is hard-won, enthusiastic and enduring.

People’s victory in 2006

The people, under the leadership of Hezbollah, withstood Israel’s devastating military assault during the 2006 war while simultaneously fighting back against enormous odds. Lebanon’s resistance stopped cold a ground advance of Israeli soldiers less than a mile into Lebanon and sent them scuttling back home. It was a huge disaster for Israel.

In retaliation, Tel Aviv waged war on the civilian population of Lebanon. For 34 days it bombed houses and apartment buildings and destroyed Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, including its main power and water purification plants and 60 bridges. In this scorched-earth assault, more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed, a third of them children.

The U.S. government and media blamed the victims and the resistance. Just as the U.S. ruling class showed no sympathy for the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 who perished fighting the Nazis during World War II, it has no sympathy for the heroes of southern Lebanon who in 2006 stood up to the Israeli army and its modern U.S.-supplied weapons. Hezbollah, the defender of the Lebanese people, has been branded as a “terrorist” group by Washington.

Obama’s Imperialist Logic: Afghanistan War Needs Philippines Bases

Obama’s determination to finally conquer and dominate Afghanistan (and stabilize Pakistan) has reinforced U.S. demands for a permanent military presence in the Philippines — which since WW2 has been a U.S. staging area for imperialist interventions in Asia. (And as an extension of that logic: it has meant that the Philippines has been a centre of the global sex trade, that the U.S. has conducted counterinsurgency against anti-imperialist forces, and the U.S. has backed one brutal, corrupt and repressive neo-colonial regime after another in Manila.

This statement appeared on the Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Fight Back! affiliated blog, The Marxist-Leninist, and is now  an item for “Kasama’s Obama List” — a slow steady   documentation of the imperialism of the current U.S. government. If you uncover items (large or small, but always revealing) that belong on the list, send them in to those good comrades.

From the statement of the Communist Party of the Philippines:

“US Pacific forces commander Adm. Timothy J. Keating said, as reported by New York Times, that their work in the Philippines was not yet done. He added that ‘When the options were presented to our leadership, the decision was made to continue the Philippines mission.’ Senior Pentagon senior officials declared that they will apply to the Philippines the lessons the US military has learned in the war in Afghanistan where the US is now pouring in additional troops: ‘Battlefield successes need sustained commitment of military presence.’

The CPP noted that Pentagon chief Robert M. Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta came to the Philippines ‘to present to Arroyo in advance Obama’s agenda and ‘points of agreement,’ with the matter of US military presence in the Philippines and its role in the Southeast Asian region foremost in the agenda.’”

For the full statement >CP of the Philippines: GMA-Obama deal to make permanent US military presence in the Philippine treasonous

Palestinian Organizer Imprisoned after Tour of Canada

Interview with Abdullah Abu Rahme of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements by Stefan Christoff of The Dominion.

Mohammad Khatib is currently being held by the Israeli Defense Forces. He has been a key organizer of Bil'in's weekly peaceful protests of the separation wall.

MONTREAL–Bil’in, a village in Palestine, has become a celebrated symbol of the Palestinian popular struggle against the Israel’s “separation wall” built in the Palestinian West Bank. Each Friday, Bil’in villagers gather to peacefully protest the wall.

Demonstrations in Bil’in have attracted global attention and often face severe violence from Israeli military forces. Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahma, a Palestinian community activist from Bil’in, was killed last April after being struck at close range by a teargas canister. Abu Rahma was the 18th Palestinian to have been killed by the Israeli army during popular demonstrations against the apartheid wall in Bil’in and throughout the West Bank.

Bil’in is also known to people in Quebec and across Canada after village representatives launched a lawsuit against two Montreal-based companies involved in the construction of Israeli-only settlements on Bil’in lands. In June 2009, members of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements visited Canada, touring 11 cities across the country.

In recent weeks Israel’s military has been carrying out night raids on Bil’in, targeting members of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements with arrest. Among those arrested was Mohammad Khatib, a member of the Committee.

Khatib is a key Palestinian community activist from Bil’in. Khatib has been detained by the Israeli military for almost two weeks—a political prisoner, according to other Palestinian activists.

Khatib now joins an estimated 8,000 Palestinian prisoners currently detained by Israeli authorities. According to a recent report from Amnesty International, many Palestinian prisoners “face medical negligence, routine beatings, position torture and strip searches by Israeli prison authorities.” The Palestinian prisoner population includes over 400 children and over 100 women.

Last month, Abdullah Abu Rahme visited Canada for a national speaking tour with Khatib. On August 3, Israeli soldiers raided several homes and arrested Khatib. He is currently in prison with no charges.

BASICS Interview José Maria Sison of the International League of People’s Struggles

BASICS is… Serving the People

Basics is a free community newspaper with a working peoples’ perspective and it is also a community organizing project. Basics is an independent newspaper free from the corporate control of the mainstream press. Basics is sustained by its writers and its readers only.

They want your input and your help!

They’re looking for people who want to help build Basics in their community!

To get involved, or if you have comments or questions, email them at basics.canada{at}gmail.com.

—

On the current economic crisis and the struggle for democracy and socialism against imperialist globalization.

On August 9, 2009, the BASICS Free Community Newsletter Editor Steve da Silva interviewed José Maria “Joma” Sison, the chief political consultant to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a founder of the central organizations of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines – namely, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army – and the current Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggles, an alliance of more than 350 people’s organizations from more than 30 countries.

BASICS linked up with Joma at the NDFP office in Utrecht, Netherlands to talk about the current economic crisis and the international struggle for democracy and socialism against imperialist globalization.  The following is an edited transcript of the interview.

BASICS: Joma, thank you for meeting with BASICS.

Joma: Thank you too for having me.

Injustice Continues: Leonard Peltier Denied Parole

By Mahtowin writing for Workers World.

A wave of outrage swept the progressive community worldwide at the news that Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier was denied parole on Aug. 21. The U.S. government said Peltier will not be eligible for another parole hearing until 2024, when he will be 79 years old.

Leonard Peltier

Peltier, framed up by the FBI for the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976. He is an international symbol of the U.S. government’s refusal to respect Native nations and sovereignty and a symbol of the corruption of the U.S. criminal “justice” system.

But Peltier is not just a symbol. He is “ikce wicasa,” the Lakota phrase meaning “human being.” He has been held captive for more than 12,000 days–six years longer than South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.

The feds have tried to have Peltier assassinated in prison. He has been put in solitary confinement countless times. He is currently imprisoned in Lewisburg, Pa., far from his family and his reservation. Peltier, now 64, grows increasingly ill from diabetes, vision and prostate problems, and other medical issues. Like all prisoners, he receives inadequate medical care.

Peltier’s children have grown up without him, and he has never been able to hold his grandchildren. He longs to walk the land and see the night sky, to eat a meal of his own choosing, to gather with his family and friends, to live among his people once more. Peltier, a man whose only crime has been to fight for Native rights and sovereignty, languishes in prison solely because of the dishonesty and arrogance of the U.S. government and its Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Despite everything, Peltier’s spirit is not crushed. His supporters cannot allow themselves to be discouraged. Peltier depends upon his supporters to transmute our outrage into action and educate others about his case.

The Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee is considering its next steps, and meanwhile it wishes “to thank our thousands of supporters for their tenacious efforts, in particular during the months leading to Leonard’s recent parole hearing. Currently we are in the process of finalizing plans for efforts around exercising our right to challenge this decision, advocating for intervention by President Barack Obama, and succeeding in getting both proper medical attention for Leonard and a transfer to a federal prison closer to home. We will be issuing directives within the near future.”

Myth of the Liberal Lion

Lance Selfa of Socialist Worker reflects on Ted Kennedy’s political career and the course of American liberalism, from its heyday in the 1960s to its sorry state today.

He is the author of The Democrats: A Critical History, a leftist analysis of the Democratic Party, and editor of The Struggle for Palestine, a collection of essays by leading solidarity activists. He is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review.

FOR DECADES, Ted Kennedy was the bogeyman used by conservatives in their fundraising appeals to raise millions of dollars. To them, the liberal Kennedy seemed to represent everything they hated–there was no easier way to get a right-wing crowd booing and hissing than to mention Kennedy’s name.

So it was more than a little jarring to hear conservatives sing Kennedy’s praises for his “bipartisanship” in the wake of Kennedy’s death from brain cancer on August 25.

“There is nobody else like him,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg told the Associated Press. “If he had been physically up to it and been engaged on this [the current health care reform debate], we probably would have an agreement by now.”

Yeah, right.

But the Kennedy that the right both demonized for being a liberal icon and praised for his willingness to “reach across the aisle” was one and the same. And the media punditocracy’s assessment of him–a doctrinaire liberal turned bipartisan dealmaker–says a lot about what they considers the most important part of his legacy.

Ted Kennedy during his first campaign for Senate in 1962

With a virtual guarantee of reelection every six years in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts, Kennedy compiled a consistently liberal voting record, with little fear that Republicans would be able to mount a serious challenge to him.

Kennedy went through a series of personal scandals that might have led to jail time for a less politically connected man–from leaving the scene of an accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., that killed a young female campaign volunteer in 1969, to his entanglement with his nephew who was charged with rape in 1991. But none of it put his reelection in doubt.

“[Kennedy] once said that ‘I define liberalism in this country’…and he really did for a whole half century, ” presidential historian Michael Beschloss told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Countdown. Along the way, Kennedy played a key role in redefining and redirecting liberalism and its chief standard bearer in the U.S. political system, the Democratic Party.

Fundamentally, Kennedy’s political career is a chronicle of the decline of American liberalism, which once promised to end poverty in America, but now debates whether including even a mild “public option” in a health care reform bill might be a bridge too far.

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U.S. Renews Campaign Against Libya

By Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire, for Workers World.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi returned home to Libya Aug. 21 to a hero’s welcome. He had been held in a Scottish prison for eight years in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. All 259 people on board the aircraft were killed plus 11 others on the ground.

Al-Megrahi, who has always maintained his innocence, was released on humanitarian grounds by the Scottish authorities after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.

Libya’s Oya newspaper shows Libyans greeting al-Megrahi (center) upon his arrival in Tripoli on Aug. 20.

This political prisoner’s release created the conditions for a renewal of attacks on the North African state of Libya, which since 1969 has been headed by Muammar Qaddafi, a leader with an anti-imperialist history. Qaddafi currently serves as chairman of the African Union. Beginning with the Reagan administration, the U.S. had for years designated Libya under Qaddafi a “terrorist state.”

The U.S. Air Force bombed Libya, which has been a strong advocate of African unity and socialism, on April 14, 1986. The bombings sparked outrage throughout Africa and the world.

U.S. relations with Libya strained

After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the escalation of the U.S. so-called “war on terror,” Washington attempted to normalize relations with Libya in an effort to further isolate Iraq, Syria, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Sudan and Iran. During the period after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration claimed that Libya had agreed to dismantle and eliminate its purported “weapons of mass destruction” in exchange for greater diplomatic recognition from Washington and London.

In August 2003 the Libyan government agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing. In September of the same year, the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions against Libya.

In 2006, Washington restored full diplomatic relations with Libya, opening the door for further economic cooperation. The country was removed from the State Department’s list of governments that allegedly “support terrorism.” During the final days of the Bush administration, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the country.

Libya has also been involved in peace negotiations surrounding the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.

During the course of the normalization process, U.S. and British oil firms were allowed to resume economic relations with Libya, which is said to hold the largest oil reserves on the African continent. Yet this apparent thawing in relations between the U.S. and Libya has been jeopardized by the Obama administration’s virulent statements in response to the release of al-Megrahi and his welcoming by the Libyan government and people.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill took responsibility for making the decision to release al-Megrahi from prison. “It is my decision that Mr. al-Megrahi … be released on compassionate grounds and be returned to Libya to die,” MacAskill said. (Al-Jazeera, Aug. 21)

Afghans Opt Out of Phony Election

By John Catalinotto of Workers World.

The fraud-filled and inconclusive Afghan presidential election exposed the weakness of the U.S.-NATO occupation regime. President Barack Obama’s defense of the phony election and of the U.S. intervention failed to cover this up at a time when the people in the U.S. are growing increasingly unhappy with the Afghan war.

The top Pentagon brass admit to weaknesses of the occupation and the Afghan puppet regime, but do so in order to make the case for more U.S. troops. The generals are putting the administration in the position of taking responsibility for a U.S. defeat if it doesn’t send more youths to kill and die in Central Asia.

No election under foreign occupation can be considered “fair.” It is automatically a violation of that nation’s sovereignty to have foreign troops presiding over polling places. But Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential election was corrupt from every angle.

The Taliban-led resistance forces opposed participation in what they rightfully considered a foreign-imposed election. In the many areas under control of the resistance, voting was minimal. “In a broad southern region—provinces like Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan and Zabul—turnout was as low as 5 percent to 10 percent, [a Western] official said, effectively disenfranchising the region viewed as the most crucial” in the latest U.S. offensive. (New York Times, Aug. 22)

In provinces where the resistance is weaker, local military figures—usually called “warlords” in the Western media—controlled the voting places. Most of these figures were lined up with incumbent President Hamid Karzai, who even pulled off a last-minute deal with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, bringing him back from exile in Turkey in an attempt to deliver votes from the Uzbek ethnic group.

One of the more absurd aspects of the election was the alleged high participation of women voting in certain areas. It turned out that men who were “heads” of families could hold the voting cards of all the women in the household and vote for them. Sonali Kolhatkar, co-author of the book, “Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence,” said on Democracy Now! on Aug. 20 that “thousands of women have been registered to vote by their husbands or by male relatives, and voting has apparently been done in their name.”

Whether Karzai was able to win a clear victory—requiring more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round—is still in doubt. There were over 40 candidates, but only a few were really in the contest. Karzai’s main rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, claims Karzai’s forces stuffed ballot boxes and stole ballots in the south. Outside election observers agree there was vote manipulation which aided Karzai. Both Abdullah, who also cooperates with the occupation forces, and Karzai claim to have won the election.

Karzai’s rivals have filed over a thousand claims of election fraud. The result is that the election, which the U.S. and NATO hoped would somehow add legitimacy to the occupation regime, has only discredited it further.

Morales Annuls Forest Exploitation Concessions, Turns Land Over to Indians

LA PAZ – The government of Evo Morales on Sunday annulled the concessions to exploit forest areas in a portion of eastern Bolivia and handed over more than 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of those lands to the Guaraya Indians.

Morales attended the ceremony to turn over the lands and forests in the town of Ascension de Guarayos, in Santa Cruz province, which borders on Brazil.

In his speech at the event, Morales emphasized that his agrarian reform plan is part of his effort to provide “equality” to Bolivians, and he asked the Indians to organize themselves to defend their lands.

Land Vice Minister Alejandro Almaraz said that the lands that were turned over to the Guarayas had been in other hands for some time despite the fact that Bolivian law protects the community property of the country’s ethnic groups.

Almaraz said that “there can be no private companies” in the region, no matter how much they might be practicing sustainable exploitation of the forests, because the Indians’ right to the land overrides that consideration.

“Those forests have to serve to ensure the future of the Guaraya people and should be exploited but at the same time be conserved,” said Almaraz, who justified the government’s decisions within the framework of Morales’ “agrarian revolution.”

However, he also announced that the titles to more than 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) would be given to agri-businessmen in the same region because they were adhering to and helping carry out the agrarian law.

Republished from LAHT

Six Nations Challenge Torch Relay

Torch relay sparks heat at meeting

The people of Six Nations are questioning whether the Olympic torch is a symbol of sports excellence or native oppression as they ponder whether to support its passage across the territory.

At a public meeting held to hear different views on the traditional Olympic Torch relay, much of the sentiment expressed was decidedly anti-torch.

A small group of young people spoke out against the torch run because of the land issues being fought in British Columbia. The games are being held on lands that incorporate four First Nations territories.

Three members of the Four Host First Nations were welcomed to the meeting and spoke positively of their involvement in both the bid process and the games planning.

“Usually we get asked to come in at the last minute for feathers and dances, but this time the First Nations were invited to be part of the bid,” said Tewanee Joseph, the CEO of the Four Host First Nations.

Because the bid was won by only two votes, the First Nations consider their involvement critical to the process.

Tewanee said working on the games has brought the natives together and even reinvigorated parts of their culture.

These Olympic games represent the first time that merchandise for souvenirs will represent aboriginal art and many of the B. C. natives are learning and practising songs and dances for performances.

“When the world comes to Vancouver in 2010 they’ll leave with the different view of our people.”

But Melissa Elliott, 19, said her eyes had been opened to another side of the Olympics by an unnamed woman who pleaded with natives to recognize the negative effect of the games.

Elliott read a letter from the woman who warned of clear-cutting, animal migration trails destroyed and land claims protesters being arrested.

“What are we willing to sacrifice for a one-day event in our territory?” asked Elliott.

Several Confederacy supporters chided those from the Four Host First Nations for dealing with the elected council rather than the traditional Confederacy at Six Nations.

The Winter Games will be held on unceded native territory and many natives object to more ski resorts and destruction of natural forests in order to accommodate them.

A Toronto woman who is part of the Olympic Resistance Network spoke about the 500 missing native women and children in Canada and noted that the Olympics always attracts the seediest elements who prey on women and young children, many of them natives.

“Traffickers will see the 2010 Olympics as their biggest opportunity in decades,” said the woman.

Doreen Silversmith of Six Nations said her issue was the elected council had agreed to the torch passing through the territory without consulting the community.

Many of the 75 people at the public meeting expressed anti-torch sentiments and a representative of the Men’s Fire council said that group’s consensus was that the torch should not pass through Six Nations.

“If the torch comes here, I’ll be on the road to protest,” said another man to applause.

Current plans call for four people to participate on the Six Nations part of the torch run just before Christmas this year.

Two people are to be selected by the Six Nations: one of the spots will go to a person selected from three nominees and the other to 20 athletes representing Six Nations teams that have won provincial and other championships. Two other runners will be selected through sponsors RBC and Coke.

The issue couldn’t be resolved Thursday night and elected councillors expect further meetings to discuss the issue.

Defending Clinics in Kentucky

Cindy Klumb of Socialist Worker describes the battle to for women’s access to abortion services in Kentucky–and what it says about the pro-choice struggle everywhere.

Anti-choice protesters harass patients at the only abortion clinic in Louisville, Ky.

A FRIEND recently sent me a link for a blog about a clinic defense in my hometown of Louisville, Ky. It reminded me of how the national statistics often don’t really tell the story of how far we have gone back since Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

NARAL ranks Kentucky 46th in its 2009 Report Card on Women’s Reproductive Rights, with a grade of F. The situation in the seven states bordering Kentucky isn’t much better, with only two states–West Virginia and Illinois–considered pro-choice. Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Virginia also get F grades, and Tennessee a D+.

Nationally, only 13 percent of counties offer abortion services; in Kentucky, only two of 120 counties have abortion clinics–Louisville Metro (Jefferson) and Lexington Metro (Lafayette). The clinic in Lexington only operates on a part-time basis. Just one clinic remains open in Louisville. According to Guttmacher Institute, 77 percent of Kentucky’s women live in those other 118 counties. Six other metropolitan areas have no abortion provider.

A group of very courageous young women began gathering every Saturday morning outside of the EMW Surgical Center in Louisville to counter right-wing protesters who chase patients down from the moment they step out of their cars to they reach the clinic door.

One woman who takes part in clinic defense described the scene at the clinic:

Kentucky Right to Life and the Catholic Church have a strong presence…Operation Rescue has made some appearances, as have other well-known groups. These out-of-town groups are often brought in and sponsored by the Cards for Life, the University of Louisville’s pro-life student group…

Some small groups hold signs and sing songs while the Catholics line the sidewalk and pray the rosary. Occasionally, we get a lone soapbox preacher that preaches over the rosary…These more passive protesters decorate the sidewalk near the clinic door, where the whole scene comes to a head.

A whole different brand of aggression exists down the sidewalk and across the street. This is where the protesters, who we refer to as “chasers,” meet and accost clients and their support people often before they are even out of the car.

Chasers are known for pushing their way to clients and grabbing hold of them, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to impede progress toward the clinic, shaming, guilting, judging and even telling small children that “mommy is a murderer,” all while forcing pamphlets at people and showing them pictures and fetus figurines.

The clinic defense has grown over time, with volunteer escorts–male and female–turning out every day the clinic is open as a protective barrier between clients and the protesters.

Afghanistan: Why Afghans Have No Hope in This Week’s Vote

Malalai Joya reports on this week’s election in Afghanistan: “In a country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, Taliban insurgency, drug money and guns, no one can expect a legitimate or fair vote.”

Article originally appeared at www.CommonDreams.org.

Like millions of Afghans, I have no hope in the results of this week’s election. In a country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, Taliban insurgency, drug money and guns, no one can expect a legitimate or fair vote.

Among the people on the street, a common sentiment is, ‘Everything has already been decided by the U.S. and NATO, and the real winner has already been picked by the White House and Pentagon.’ Although there are a total of 41 candidates running for president, the vast majority of them are well known faces responsible for the current disastrous situation in Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai has cemented alliances with brutal warlords and fundamentalists in order to maintain his position. Although our Constitution forbids war criminals from running for office, he has named two notorious militia commanders as his vice-presidential running mates – Qasim Fahim, who was, at the time of the 2001 invasion, the warlord who headed up the Northern Alliance, and Karim Khalili. The election commission did not reject them or a number of others accused of many crimes, and so the list of candidates also includes former Russian puppets and a former Taliban commander.

Karzai has also continued to absolutely betray the women of Afghanistan. Even after massive international outcry and brave protesters taking to the streets of Kabul, Karzai has implemented the infamous law targeting Shia women. He had initially promised to review the most egregious clauses, but in the end it was passed with few amendments, leaving the barbaric anti-women statements untouched. As Human Rights Watch recently said, “Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election.”

Deals have been made with countless fundamentalists in Karzai’s maneuvering to stay in power. For example, pro-Iranian extremist Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, who has been accused of war crimes, has been promised five cabinet positions for his party, and so he has told the media he’s backing Karzai. A deal has even been done with the dreaded warlord Rashid Dostum – who has returned from exile in Turkey to campaign for Karzai – and many other such terrorists. Rather than democracy, what we have in Afghanistan today are back room deals amongst discredited warlords.

Honduras: Chronicle of a Planned Coup

Mass organizations keep up the struggle

Supporters of President Manuel Zelaya amass in front of the entrance to the international airport, after the OAS suspended Honduras

On June 28, the capitalist and U.S. imperialist-backed Honduran military embarked on a new chapter in the long line of military coups in Latin America. In response to news of the coup, President Obama issued the following statement:

I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.” (White House Press Office, June 28)

In his first words, Obama had already recognized the “social actors,” and had suggested that there should be “dialogue.” His statement was not off the cuff; rather it was meticulously calculated, written with great anticipation and reflection.

The statement echoed throughout the world as an apparent political shift away from President Bush’s Latin America stance. What seemed like a simple statement can now be evaluated with an overall analysis of the actions taken since, and those taken by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. embassy in Honduras in the days leading up to the coup d’etat.

Manuel Zelaya was elected president of Honduras in November 2005. Initially, he worked on moderate reforms such as fighting against corruption and bringing about small–scale land reform for the country’s poor. Subsequently, Zelaya pushed his social justice agenda forward—incorporating Honduras into Petro-Caribe, an organization sponsored by Venezuela to provide Central America with subsidized oil, and ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas. He doubled the minimum wage, called for the closing of the American military base of Soto Cano, also known as Palmerola, and proposed changing the military-written 1980 constitution to reflect the widening demand for social change of Honduras’s poor and working class. Each one of these actions brought the president closer to a confrontation with U.S. imperialism.

Moves against imperialist interests

The incorporation of Honduras into Petro Caribe in January 2007 was the first strike against U.S. imperialist interests. The then-U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Charles Ford, stated, “It’s quite a serious action which we have to look at from the point of view of the investment climate and the rules of the game.” At that time, U.S. companies Exxon and Chevron as well as Royal Dutch Shell were the exclusive distributors of oil in Honduras, all at inflated market prices. Petro-Caribe has saved the Honduran government tens of millions of dollars yearly in petrol imports. (Reuters, Jan. 15, 2007)