Bolivia: General Strike Protests Crackdown on Native March

Repression of TIPNIS Marchers

Bolivia’s main trade union declared a 24-hour general strike Wednesday to protest Sunday’s police crackdown on indigenous demonstrators who were protesting the construction of a road through a pristine rainforest preserve.

Thousands of members of unions belonging to the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) held protest marches in Bolivia’s main cities Wednesday, and roadblocks have been set up in La Paz, where teachers, doctors and other unions have joined the strike.

Labour Minister Daniel Santalla said there was no reason for the protest measure, since President Evo Morales already announced on Monday that work on the road had been suspended until voters in the affected provinces decided the fate of the project. 

Book Review – Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care

By Ramona Wadi. Ramona Wadi is a freelance writer living in Malta. Visit her blog at http://walzerscent.blogspot.com.

“Often we need to change our concepts, not only the general concepts, the social or philosophical ones, but also sometimes our medical concepts.” - Ernesto Che Guevara.

Modelled on Che Guevara’s principles and keeping in line with the Cuban revolution, Steve Brouwer’s assessment of Cuba’s health care system in his book Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care (Monthly Review Press, July 2011) stands as a testimony to answer anyone claiming that socialism cannot function. Cuban doctors have regaled people in Latin America and around the world with medical opportunities which, in capitalist ideology and implementation, remain remote. While Cubans are provided free health care provided by medics who are dedicated to science and society, the United States has created a scheme based on profits, which marginalizes a major segment of the population who cannot afford costly treatment.

Why I Am An Atheist

Today is the birthday of the one of the most important martyrs in the Indian revolutionary struggle. Bhagat Singh, a young communist revolutionary and fighter for India’s national liberation, was executed by command of the British colonialists on March 23, 1931. Like Che Guevara, he has become a symbol of resistance for revolutionary youth throughout Asia and the world.

Singh was born into a Sikh family, but by the time of his death he become a staunch atheist. This pamphlet, which is one of his best known and considered an anti-colonial classic by many, was a result of some criticism by fellow revolutionaries on his failure to acknowledge religion and God while in a condemned cell, the accusation of vanity was also dealt with in this pamphlet. He supported his own beliefs and claimed that he used to be a firm believer in The Almighty, but could not bring himself to believe the myths and beliefs that others held close to their hearts. In this pamphlet, he acknowledged the fact that religion made death easier, but also said that unproved philosophy is a sign of human weakness.

Troy Davis’ Final Letter to His Supporters

To All:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

Judge in Philly Blocks Diop Olugbala’s Name Change on Ballot

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia democratic party Judge James M. Lynn rejected independent mayoral candidate Diop Olugbala’s formal filing to change the name listed on the ballot from his birth name, Wali Rahman, to the name he is popularly known by, Diop Olugbala.

Judge Lynn’s membership in the democratic party is a conflict of interest in this ruling, which clearly attempts to sabotage Diop’s campaign that challenges the democratic party’s neocolonial incumbent mayor. Judge Lynn, the democratic party and Michael Nutter appear to have done this as an underhanded attempt to deny the people a legitimate chance to vote for Diop, a people’s candidate.

Bolivia’s Defense Minister Resigns Over Amazon Repression

Bolivian Defense Minister Cecilia Chacón resigned in protest Sept. 26, the day after National Police used tear gas and mass arrests to halt a cross-country march by indigenous protesters in the Amazonian department of Beni. In an open letter to President Evo Morales, Chacón gave notice of her “irrevocable” resignation, stating: “I do not agree with the decision to intervene in the march and I cannot defend or justify the measure when other alternatives existed.” The police charge on the protesters’ encampment outside the village of Yucomo came hours after Morales proposed a regional referendum on the issue that sparked the protest—his proposed new road cutting through the rainforest to Brazil.

Some 300 arrested protesters were put on buses to be driven away—but local residents erected barricades on the roads and the town’s airstrip. “Residents blocked the airport and prevented the detainees from being transferred,” the mayor of local municipality Rurrenabaque, Yerko Nuñez, told Panamerican Radio. He said that the detainees were freed after the police fled angry residents. Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti told a press conference in La Paz: “Given the attack by hundreds of people, the police pulled back to avoid confrontations.”

Bolivia’s 9/11: The Pando Massacre and the TIPNIS Conflict

On September 11, Bolivians observed the third anniversary of the Pando massacre, a brutal attack on indigenous peasants and students in the Amazonian lowlands and the most deadly act of political violence in the country since 2003. Little known outside Bolivia, the tragic event marked a turning point in Bolivia’s recent history, and has special relevance today for the escalating conflict over the TIPNIS highway.

The Pando Massacre

The massacre took place at the height of a 2008 revolt against President Evo Morales’ MAS government by conservative elites and their allied “prefects” (governors) in Bolivia’s four lowlands “Media Luna” departments, that brought the country to the brink of a “civil coup.” Under the banner of regional autonomy—in reality, a demand by local elites to retain control of land and hydrocarbons resources—the anti-MAS power bloc seized public buildings and airports, attacked MAS government officials, and blocked the transport of goods to western highlands regions in a massive effort to destabilize the government.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Address to the UN General Assembly

On Thursday, September 22, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Below is the complete text of his speech.

Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am grateful to the Almighty Allah who granted me, once more, the opportunity to appear before this world assembly. I have the pleasure to express my sincere thanks to H.E. Joseph Deiss, president of the sixty-fifth session for his tremendous efforts during his tenure. I also would like to congratulate H.E. Nassir Abdulaziz AI-Nasser on his election as the president of sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly and wish him all success.

Let me seize the moment to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the past year, particularly to the victims of the tragic famine in Somalia and the devastating flood in Pakistan and especially the earthquake and the ensuing explosions in the nuclear power plant in Japan. I urge everyone to intensify their assistance and aid to the affected populations in these countries.

State of Georgia Carries Out murder of Troy Davis

On Wednesday, September 21 at approximately 11:00pm U.S. Eastern Time, after a three hour intervention, in which the U.S. supreme court denied a motion for a stay of execution, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis.

Leading up to the murder, African people and allies around the world expressed their demand that the execution be stopped.

The execution follows a ruling by U.S. colonial courts on Tuesday that Troy Davis would be murdered in the legal lynching that was originally scheduled for Wednesday, September 21 at 7:00pm U.S. Eastern Time.

Davis, 42, an African man who had been on death row for more than 20 years, was framed up and convicted in the 1989 death of a white policeman in Savannah, GA.

Despite no physical evidence and the recanting of testimony by seven of the nine witnesses, plans for the execution of Davis, one of the millions of African men trapped in the colonial prison system, went forward.

The False Conundrum of ‘Socialism in One Country’

An excerpt from the Political Report to the 5th Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, by Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African Socialist International.

Our revolutionary struggle for liberation, unification and socialism in Africa, throughout the “colonies” and other areas of the world to which we have been forcibly dispersed in the construction of capitalism, will prove to be as significant in the defeat of the capitalist social system as the slave trade was in its advent.

The socialist liberation and unification of Africa and African people under the leadership of the African working class will be the central factor in the defeat of world capitalism and will provide the material basis for the advent for world socialism.

African Internationalism, which demands the total revolutionary liberation and unification of Africa and African people worldwide under the leadership of the African working class, is informed by this scientifically sound dialectic.

Public Service Anouncement on the Ecocide of Turtle Island

From Warclub News

Wikileaks: More on Amerikkka’s Interventions in Bolivia

By Brenda Norrell

CIA Role in Alleged Evo Morales Assassination Plot

The Wikileaks releases of US diplomatic cables reveal a pattern of US spying on President Evo Morales. One cable describes Bolivia’s allegations of a CIA connection in an alleged plot to assassinate President Morales.

Wikileaks released an unredacted version of this cable on Sept. 8.

The confidential US cable describes a Bolivian prosecutor’s statement about the alleged plot to assassinate President Morales in 2009. As usual, the US Embassy evaluates how the allegations of CIA involvement are playing out in the media.

The Lost Taino Tribe

THE LOST TAINO TRIBE examines the complex issue of Taino history in Boriquén (Puerto Rico) and documents the efforts of the Taino resurgence movement taking place throughout the Americas.

Chairman Omali on Parasitism & Genocide

In this presentation Chairman Omali vividly illustrates the profound contradictions that exist as result of  colonialism and parasitic capitalism between the oppression of Africans and Native people and the benefits Europeans (whites) have received as a result of that domination. He calls on Whites to take a philosophical, ideological and moral stand against their own imperialism which has allowed them to live lives of relative comfort and ease. Additionally he addresses the need for reparations for the expropriation of wealth via brigandage, slavery, genocide, and slave labor of Africans and Native people which provided the necessary primitive accumulation of capital to jump start the entire capitalist world economy.

Communes in Caracas: Communal Organization Includes the City

Among the aims of community organization is that of building the communal State, where power is exercised directly by the people, through self-government, with an economic model of social property and endogenous development.

Based on this premise, 236 communes and more than 9,000 communal councils have been established, according to information from the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes.

Through this process the city of Caracas has turned into a space full of examples of self-government.

Socioeconomic Model

In the Capital District around 44 sectors exist that are in the process of building communes in order to lay the foundations for Venezuelan socialism.