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http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1295
Vigil to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC
November 17-19, 2006
Together We'll Shut it Down!
This November 17-19, thousands will gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for the Vigil to Close the School of the Americas! Following on the heels of our first vote in Congress in seven years, this year's Vigil is shaping up to be a powerful time for movement building and an effective tool in the campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC.
2006 Schedule of Events
Read about past Vigils to Close the School of the Americas.
NOVEMBER ORGANIZING PACKET: The November Organizing Packet is a great resource for you and your community as you spread the word about the SOA/ WHINSEC and as you make plans to attend the November 17-19 Vigil to Close the SOA at Fort Benning, Georgia. In it, you'll find information about what to expect at Ft. Benning, logistical information to assist your trip planning, media, legislative, fundraising and outreach tips and resources, and flyers you can reproduce and use in your community. Click here to view or download a hard copy of the packet.
HOTELS: See a list of hotel and other accomodations in and around Columbus, Georgia. Contact Alyson Hayes at the Columbus Visitors Bureau with any questions at 1-800-999-1613.
OUTREACH: You can make a big difference by using a few simple resources at your disposal and reaching out to your local media. Taking a little time to carry out a handful of media-related tasks can profoundly impact the number of people in your area who know about the SOA/WHINSEC issue and the number of people who get involved in the work to CLOSE IT DOWN. Read about how you can Work With Your Local Media! or contact us in the SOA Watch office at 202-234-3440 or email media(at)soaw.org.
TRAVEL: See information on traveling to Columbus, whether by plane, car, bus, train or something more creative.
Click here to check the Ride Board for carpools and busses from your area.
ACCESSIBILITY & INTERPRETATION: Find out more about ASL and English<>Spanish intrepretation services, large print and Braille programs and wheelchair accessibilty.
PEACEMAKERS NEEDED:SOA Watch is looking for Peacemaker Volunteers to work at the vigil this year. Clickhere to read more about how you can participate, and to contact our Peacemaker coordinators.
LOCAL GROUPS: Do you know others in your area that are working to close down the School of the Americas? Connect with others now before heading to Georgia. Click here for a listing of SOA Watch local groups. If your group is not listed, please add your contact information.
Don't see a group for your area? Consider starting one! For more information, contact us at info@soaw.org or at 202-234-3440 or contact your regional representative for more information about those in your region working to close the SOA/ WHINSEC.
Photos by Linda Panetta, www.soawne.org
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http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10142
Socialist Worker 2027, 18 November 2006
Debating Chavez: Pirates of the Caribbean
Not for the first time, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez spoke for many people around the world when he called George Bush “the devil” in a recent speech to the United Nations. As it turned out, it echoed the feelings of many US voters, as the recent election there has shown. And despite a barrage of propaganda from the right, it seems likely that Chavez will be re-elected to the Venezuelan presidency on 4 December.
Since he came to power in 1998, the two thirds of Venezuela’s population who live on or below the poverty line have, for the first time, begun to benefit from the country’s oil wealth. The new schools and universities, several thousand new health centres, and a programme for redistributing unused land, have improved the lives of the very poor.
In Bolivia the election of Evo Morales as president in 2005 was in many ways even more significant. Morales was carried to power by a mass movement, born in the city of Cochabamba in 1999 during a struggle that reversed a plan to privatise water supplies. Morales’s promise to nationalise Bolivia’s oil and gas reserves seemed to echo Chavez’s policies in Venezuela.
Middle road
Both processes have opened new avenues for the future of the region - but the route is not easy and some of the contradictions are already visible.
As the months have worn on, it has become obvious that Morales is already looking for a middle road, a way of working with multinational companies that will place obstacles in the way of any deeper social transformation. And in Venezuela, while the grassroots organise to carry forward the revolution, there are many within the government who would happily divert it.
These are the questions that the left needs to explore and debate. Sadly, Tariq Ali’s new book, Pirates of the Caribbean (Verso, £14.99), falls short of this task.
It is an odd little volume, starting with its title - after all, Bolivia is a landlocked country over 1,000 miles from the Caribbean! The cover design just adds to the confusion. Chavez and Morales are pictured beside Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who is wearing a halo.
Yet in his account of a visit to Havana, Tariq is honest enough to recognise that Castro’s regime has been repressive - of dissent, lesbians and gays, and freedom of expression.
More surprising still is that a writer of Tariq’s political experience does not ask whether a revolutionary leader should remain in power for 47 years, without any democratic mandate. (True, he did temporarily cede control to his brother, Raul, who has also held his post for 47 years.)
Did we learn nothing from the collapse of the Eastern European regimes? Tariq does ask at one point “why Fidel has not yet retired”. His answer? “The battle’s not yet won.”
In fact there is very little analysis to be found here at all. The book seems to be a kind of memoir with the aim of settling some personal scores. Long footnotes attack people who will leave very little mark on history. A lengthy appendix critiques Teodoro Petkoff, the ex-guerrilla turned vicious anti-Chavista.
But he will be virtually unknown to most of the new generation of people attracted and inspired by events in Venezuela and Bolivia. The question they are asking is how these processes can be developed and deepened, and what role we, as active socialists elsewhere in the world, can play in that process.
The masses
In each chapter, that is precisely the point where Tariq stops. The “Bolivarian Revolution” unfolding in Venezuela and the rising of the Bolivian masses have changed the face of Latin America.
But the reason for that was not simply the election of presidents with popular support or a more defiantly anti-imperialist rhetoric. President Lula in Brazil shared some of that rhetoric, but shrugged it off as soon as he tried on his first Armani suit and joined the club of globalisers.
Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s new president elect, was once a radical, but is certain to betray the hope of those who elected him (see below).
What changed the face of the planet as the 21st century began was the entry onto the stage of history of the peasants, indigenous communities, the students, urban poor and the organised working class in these countries.
It was they who stopped the right wing coup attempt that sought to overthrow Chavez, they transformed the Bolivian state. In Cuba, too, the choice we face is not the tired formula of Fidel or the Miami mafia - there too it is the mass movement of workers that will change and shape the future.
For those who want to understand the tensions and forces that will shape the Latin American revolution, Richard Gott’s thoughtful and informed analyses of both Cuba and Venezuela are powerful weapons, while James Crabtree explores the patterns of protest in Bolivia.
It was Augusto Sandino, who led the anti-imperialist struggle in Nicaragua in the 1930s, who said, “Only the workers and peasants will see the struggle through to its end.” In the 70 years since he was murdered by the dictator General Somoza, we have learned that lesson over and over again.
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http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10143
Socialist Worker 2027, 18 November 2006
Daniel Ortega: how the leopard changed his spots
In 1979, a 40-year dictatorship in Nicaragua was overthrown by a mass movement. It was headed, in its final months, by the Sandinista Liberation Front, led by Daniel Ortega.
Now, Ortega is set to become president again, following elections held on Sunday of last week. His campaign was conducted under the red and black banner of the Sandinistas, and exploited the memory of their role in overthrowing the dictatorship.
For the ten years that followed that victory, the US financed and armed a counter-revolutionary force, the Contras, which fought with particular savagery against the new government.
The US also used its financial might to destroy the fragile Nicaraguan economy. In 1990, the Sandinistas were voted out of power by a population weary of war, and enraged by the continuing gulf between the rich and poor even after a decade of revolution.
Since then, Nicaragua has lived under right wing governments that have protected the wealthy, deepened poverty for the majority, and opened the frontiers to the global market.
Perhaps that is why many Nicaraguans have invested their hopes in a man who claims to represent a tradition of resistance and a legacy of hope. There are even people outside Nicaragua who claim that Ortega’s election is another link in the chain connecting Chavez in Venezuela and Morales in Bolivia.
The reality is very different. Ortega is a cynical political operator whose sole concern was to win power. In pursuit of this goal he has forged alliances with some of the most sinister forces in Nicaraguan society.
When the Sandinistas lost the elections in 1990, their leaders took with them everything that they could carry. They called it the “piñata” - the “golden goose” you might say. Overnight they became wealthy, owners of land, property and the odd bank account.
In 1996, the Nicaraguan presidency passed to Arnaldo Aleman - a banker and wealthy and corrupt businessman. The Sandinistas under Ortega struck a series of deals with Aleman, agreeing a 50-50 deal to share power with him.
Weeks before the election, the Sandinistas rushed through a parliamentary law to ban abortion. This was the result of a deal made with the Catholic church and its leader, Cardinal Obando, the man who had led the attacks on the Sandinistas throughout the 1980s. Ortega’s vice?presidential candidate, Morales Carazo, had been a leading negotiator for the Contras.
Despite all this some still claim that Ortega will join the fight against neoliberalism. But it was Ortega who drove through the decision for Nicaragua to enter the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the key instrument of globalisation. Ironically, the right voted against it!
The resulting privatisation measures met no resistance from the man who agreed before he was elected to accept the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ortega’s campaign called for “the unity of all Nicaraguans”. But there can be no unity with ex-Contras, corrupt businessmen, the IMF and the hierarchy of the Catholic church. It’s no accident that Ortega insisted on dropping the line of the Sandinista anthem that said “the Yankees are the enemies of all humanity”.
Ortega wants power at any price. He wore the Sandinista colours to win votes, but we will see him in his true colours as soon as he enters office.
Mike Gonzalez’s books include Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. For books on Latin America, phone Bookmarks on 020 7637 1848 or go to www.bookmarks.uk.com
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_warlords_prison
November 16, 2006 AM
Colombia warlords held in former resort
By Toby Muse, Associated Press Writer
La Ceja, Colombia - In a prison nestled among central Colombia's lush green mountains, an infamous former far-right warlord tends a garden for his new project: planting gladiolas.
In a nearby workshop, an ex-paramilitary commander who ordered killings and exported tons of cocaine patiently measures a plank for a night stand.
Both men are serving time on the grounds of the former vacation resort of La Ceja, where 61 former far-right paramilitary commanders await trial. They are accused of some of the worst atrocities in this country's five-decade conflict pitting the central government and far-right militias against leftist rebels.
After months of speculation about the conditions inside the prison, authorities allowed the media to go behind the high barbed-wire fences Wednesday to see the new home of warlords who demobilized as part of a peace process with the government. The warlords are accused of carrying out large-scale massacres and countless assassinations, as well as massive drug trafficking.
Most have been here for the past two months as they wait for their cases to be heard in special tribunals. If convicted, they would face a maximum of eight years in prison, but possibly as few as six. Security is heavy around the installation. But unlike other prisons, the guards here protect the inmates from the outside, as well as the outside from the inmates.
"We have the elite anti-terrorist police in charge of the necessary patrols, making sure criminals or leftist rebels are not approaching," said external security chief Capt. Nestor Cepeda, referring to the paramilitaries' enemies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The far-right paramilitaries surged in the 1980s as landowners and drug-traffickers created their own private armies to fight the FARC.
Wednesday's half-day visit had the feel of a public relations exercise.
To drive home the paramilitary leaders' stated commitment to peace, as many as a dozen prisoners wore white T-shirts with the words "We want peace" on them.
Authorities, for their part, were anxious to show that this is no longer a resort, and that the prisoners don't have it easy under a peace process that has been criticized as too lenient.
The deal that led to the demobilization of more than 30,000 fighters remains problematic.
Many of the imprisoned leaders said the agreement is still not clear on how they'll be judged and — most important — whether they will be extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges.
"Extradition is an enormous problem for these negotiations. One way or another, we must clarify this and get some guarantees," said Salvatore Mancuso, a former paramilitary leader from the Caribbean coast, as he dug through dirt in a tent that will soon be planted with flower seeds. Like many others, Mancuso is wanted by the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges.
While the Colombian government agreed to suspend extraditions, the paramilitaries want a presidential decree that would eliminate the threat altogether.
"When we arose, institutions were not fulfilling their role in providing security, so when we decided to defend ourselves, we found a lot of social and political support," said the gardener, Jorge 40, whose real name is Rodrigo Tovar, without naming politicians who supported him.
He added that he hopes Colombia will soon have "a debate" about the paramilitaries' role in the civil war, as well as who their allies were.
Despite reports of bickering among the leaders, now thrown together in one building, the mood at the prison was calm during the press tour.
As Tovar tended his garden, a fighter known as Monoleche, accused of personally killing former paramilitary chief Carlos Castano, carefully sawed a plank of wood for a night stand.
And not far away, Ramon Izaza — sometimes called the grandfather of the militias for founding one of the first blocs of fighters — was confined to his room, the heat turned up, wearing gloves and complaining of deteriorating health.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1116/dailyUpdate.html
Posted November 16, 2006 at 11:30 a.m.
GAO report criticizes program for development of Cuban democracy
Audit shows US funds were often spent on items like chocolate and cashmere sweaters.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
A US Congressional report released on Wednesday showed that US funds that were targeted to promote democracy in Cuba have been used to buy items like crabmeat, computer games, chocolate, and cashmere sweaters.
Reuters reports that the Government Accounting Office found little oversight and accountablility in the program, which spent "$76 million between 1996 and 2005 to support Cuban dissidents, independent journalists, academics and others." It also found that 95 percent of the grants were issued without competitive bids.
Critics have long charged the grants are aimed more at winning votes in Miami than triggering political change on the communist island, where the now-ailing Castro has ruled since his 1959 revolution. Out of 10 recipients of public money reviewed by the auditors, three failed to keep adequate financial records, the Government Accountability Office said. A lot of the money was used to pay smugglers, or "mules, to avoid US restrictions on taking goods to Cuba.
The auditors questioned checks written out to staff members of groups that received funds, suspect travel expenses, and payments to a manager's family. One group acknowledged selling books it was supposed to distribute under the democracy-promoting program. One grantee "could not justify some purchases made with USAID funds, including a gas chain saw, computer gaming equipment and software (including Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations), a mountain bike, leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates," the report said.
Under the program, no money is paid directly to people in Cuba in order to protect them from prosecution by the Cuba government. Instead the funds are given to Cuban-American groups in Miami who pay smugglers to take the goods, such as medicine, books, and radios, into Cuba.
The Associated Press reports that Rep. William Delahunt (D) of Massachusetts, a longtime critic of US policy towards Cuba and one of the Congressmen who asked for the audit to be done, said the findings are "disturbing to say the least." Delahunt argues that it would be more efficient to get goods to Cuba by lifting government restrictions on family travel to Cuba. "This really cries for a more thorough review of policy as opposed to just simply focusing on the findings and looking at it as an auditing problem."
His view was supported by Rep. Jeff Flake (R) of Arizona, another adovocate of change in the US policy on Cuba. Mr. Flake said the audit's findings showed that to continue the current level of funding "would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars."
The Miami Herald reports that Mr. Delahunt, who is in line to become the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations panel of the House Committee on International Relations when Congress reconvenes next year, said he understood that it was difficult to get materials that promote democracy into Cuba.
"But our concern is the program's efficacy," he said, "in terms of what is occurring here in the United States, both in Washington and in Miami."
Delahunt told a news conference Wednesday that he expected his subcommittee to convene hearings as soon as January and hoped to get testimony from US government officials as well as grant recipients.
Defenders of the program, however, said that the report may help improve the quality of the program.
"From what I understand, the report does not question our goal and overall policy to bring freedom and democracy to Cuba," said Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. "In fact, based on what I know of the report, I would argue it seeks to reinforce our efforts by providing recommendations on how to improve the process."
The Guardian reports that the Miami-based Acción Democrática Cubana, which spent the money on the items like computer games and chocolates, defended their actions.
"These people are going hungry. They never get any chocolate there," Juan Carlos Acosta, the group's executive director, told the Miami Herald. He also defended the purchase of a chainsaw he said he needed to cut a tree that had blocked access to his office in a hurricane, and said the leather jackets and cashmere sweaters were bought in a sale. "They [the auditors] think it's not cold there," Mr Acosta said. "At $30 [£16] it's a bargain because cashmere is expensive. They were asking for sweaters."
But the Chicago Tribune reported other critics questioned the efficacy of the program.
"The program delivers lots of money to Miami but it doesn't serve the taxpayer well and it has little impact in Cuba," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_leftist_leader_1
Thu Nov 16, 12:03 AM ET
Leftist seeks funding for parallel gov't
By E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY - Passing the hat for donations may seem like an unlikely way to fund a government. But aides to former leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday he will do just that, seeking contributions from ordinary Mexicans to support a parallel, "legitimate" administration he declared after losing the July 2 elections to President-elect Felipe Calderon by a razor-thin margin.
Lopez Obrador, who claims he was robbed of the victory by fraud, has already named a Cabinet. He plans to be "sworn in" to office on Monday, Mexico's Revolution Day, in the capital's main square.
Calderon will be sworn in as the country's official president on Dec. 1.
According to Lopez Obrador's Web site, the campaign has opened bank accounts where Mexicans can donate anywhere from about $9 to $2,800. Lopez Obrador has not said exactly what the money will be used for.
"We're doing this because otherwise, we wouldn't have the means to survive or get funds for the movement," said Lopez Obrador spokesman Cesar Yanez. "We trust that people will donate, little by little."
Based in Mexico City, the parallel government will not try to collect taxes or make laws. Rather, it will focus on organizing supporters around the country and waging a resistance campaign to undermine President-elect Felipe Calderon during his six-year term that begins Dec. 1.
Lopez Obrador's claims of fraud and requests for a full recount were rejected by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. Following a partial recount, the court confirmed Calderon's victory over Lopez Obrador by less than 1 percentage point.
Official Website for Lopez Obrador=
http://www.amlo.org.mx/
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1947931,00.html
Wednesday November 15, 2006
US lawyers challenge clampdown on immigrant rights
· Terrorist suspects could face indefinite detention
· 'Enemy combatant' may be applied to any foreigner
Julian Borger in Washington / The Guardian
American civil rights lawyers expressed outrage yesterday at a justice department court motion arguing that immigrants living in the US could be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and had no right to challenge their imprisonment in court.
The motion was filed by the administration on Monday in the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, a Qatar citizen studying in the US who was arrested in 2001 and accused of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent. He is being held in a military prison in South Carolina.
The six-page justice department motion argued that under an anti-terrorist law passed last month, he was an "unlawful enemy combatant" who had no right to challenge his imprisonment in civilian courts.
Instead, the motion said, his imprisonment would be reviewed by a military tribunal. But critics of the law, the military commissions act, said that the tribunals did not meet American or international standards of justice. Monday's motion made it clear that the US government intended the term "enemy combatant" could apply to immigrants living legally in the US as much as to gunmen captured on distant battlefields.
The justice department also noted that the new law applies to all enemy combatants "regardless of the location of the detention". It makes no distinction between prisons in the US and Guantánamo Bay.
"They have now, for the first time in the history of the United States, said that non-citizens in this country have no habeas [corpus] rights," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer for Mr Marri from the Brennan Centre for Justice at New York University. "It means millions of non-citizens could be whisked off in the dead of the night and held indefinitely in a military brig."
Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "This move by the government illustrates how dangerous the law is. It really is frightening."
The act was passed during an election campaign in which the Bush administration attempted to portray the opposition Democrats as being soft on terrorism.
"The law was hurried through Congress with only a few hours of debate," Mr Dixon said. But he said it would become far more controversial if more immigrants were rounded up under its loose definition of "unlawful enemy combatant".
The military commissions act defines an unlawful enemy combatant as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant." Any suspect who falls under that definition is not protected by the Geneva convention, nor by habeas corpus rights under US law, which allow prisoners to challenge the legal basis of their incarceration.
Since the law was passed, the justice department has called on US courts to dismiss several hundred habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantánamo Bay prisoners, on the grounds that the law took their cases out of US civilian jurisdiction.
The law is being challenged as unconstitutional by lawyers for many of the approximately 440 inmates in Washington, and the issue is expected to come before the supreme court.
Meanwhile yesterday, civil rights groups filed a lawsuit in a German court seeking war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld, the outgoing US defence secretary, for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and in setting up the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Attorney general Alberto Gonzalez and former CIA director George Tenet were also named.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_castro
Wed Nov 15, 2006
Chavez: Castro out of bed and recovering
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is no longer bedridden and is well enough to walk around.
"Fidel is no longer in bed," Chavez said in a televised speech. "Fidel is in full recuperation and is walking around more than he is in bed."
Chavez said the 80-year-old leader still faces a long convalescence with risks due to his age, but that his recovery "is going well."
After nearly a half century in office, Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July after undergoing intestinal surgery. The Cuban government has treated his ailment as a state secret, fueling speculation about prospects for recovery.
U.S. government officials said last week that there is still some mystery about Castro's diagnosis, his treatment and how he is responding. These officials believe that the 80-year-old has terminal cancer of the stomach, colon or pancreas.
He was seen weakened and thinner in official state photos released late last month, and it is considered unlikely that he will return to power or survive through the end of next year, U.S. government and defense officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the politically sensitive topic.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/nicaragua_election
Wed Nov 15, 2006
Count confirms Ortega's win in Nicaragua
MANAGUA, Nicaragua - A complete count of the Nov. 5 presidential election has confirmed Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega won by enough of a margin to avoid a runoff, the Supreme Electoral Council announced.
With 100 percent of the votes counted, Ortega won with 37.9 percent, the council said late Tuesday night.
Harvard-trained economist Eduardo Montealegre, of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance party, finished second with 28.3 percent of the vote, ahead of three other candidates.
Ortega's victory was made possible under a new electoral law that allows candidates a first-round victory if they win at least 35 percent of the vote and lead the runner-up by at least 5 percentage points.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-boy15nov15,0,4430315.story?coll=la-home-headlines
November 15, 2006
Mexican lawmakers unite behind 7-year-old
The poster child for immigration activists persuades Congress to ask the U.S. not to deport his mother, who's holed up in a Chicago church.
By Héctor Tobar and P.J. Huffstutter, Times Staff Writers
Email= hector.tobar@latimes.com
MEXICO CITY — Seven-year-old Saul Arellano fidgeted with his lucha libre wrestling toys Tuesday as he walked through the halls of Mexico's Congress. Alongside him was the small retinue of U.S. activists who have helped make him a cause celebre of the immigration debate on both sides of the border.
The shy but persuasive U.S.-born son of a Mexican immigrant told his story to legislators in spare, American-accented Spanish.
"It's hard to talk to a 7-year-old," said Congressman Edmundo Ramirez. "But he's made it clear he doesn't want to be separated from his mother…. There are millions of undocumented families in the United States that are in the same position."
On Tuesday, the child lobbyist persuaded the factions in Mexico's divided Congress to unite behind his plea: They voted unanimously to ask the U.S. government not to deport his mother, Elvira, an illegal immigrant holed up in a Chicago church.
The saga of "Little Saul" (Saulito in Spanish) has captivated Mexico since he arrived here Sunday on a mission to draw attention to the plight of thousands of Latino families who could be divided by stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
Interviewed Tuesday morning in the Televisa studio by Carlos Loret de Mola, one of Mexico's most famous TV personalities, Saul offered the poignant image of a child far away from home. His small body barely filled the swivel chair. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
"Do you feel a little bit Mexican?" Loret de Mola asked.
"I don't know," the boy answered in Spanish. No se.
"How did you learn Spanish?"
"I don't know."
When Loret de Mola asked Saul whether he wanted to live in Mexico, the boy answered simply, "No."
"Why not?"
"Because over there in Chicago is where my school is, my friends," the boy said.
Saul's visits with Mexican lawmakers are the latest chapter in a story that began with Elvira's illegal border crossing and move to Washington state, where she gave birth to Saul. She later settled in Chicago, where she received a deportation order by mail three months ago.
In Chicago, New York and other U.S. cities, a growing "sanctuary" movement seeking to protect illegal immigrants from deportation has made Saulito and his mother its poster family.
The Arellanos are living above the rough-hewn wooden benches of Adalberto United Methodist Church, a storefront in a Puerto Rican neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Between services, the front doors are usually padlocked.
"This is a fight we won't give up on," Elvira, a 31-year-old single mother, said in Spanish. "My son is an American citizen, and he deserves to have his mother by his side."
There are at least 3.1 million children like Saul in the United States, with one or more parents in the country illegally, according to a 2006 report released by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Arellano said her trouble began in December 2001 when she was arrested and later convicted of fraudulently using a Social Security number to land a job with a cleaning crew at O'Hare International Airport. After several extensions that allowed her to stay, and a failed legal appeal, she was told to report for deportation proceedings on Aug. 15.
"I could have run, taken Saulito to another town, found another Social Security number and another job," Elvira said. "I got tired of running and hiding. I wanted a better life for us, even if it meant that we'd both have to make sacrifices."
A somber boy who dreams of becoming a firefighter, Saul has traveled to Los Angeles, visited the White House twice to deliver letters to President Bush and spoken at public rallies in Chicago.
Elvira, meanwhile, has tried to make the tiny space where she lives with her son homey. Lace curtains hang over the one small window, which looks out onto a brick wall.
The pressure has taken its toll on her son, she said. Saulito has broken out in hives from stress and is seeing a therapist once a week to deal with nightmares of his mother being dragged out of the church.
"Some people have said I'm asking too much of Saulito," Elvira said. "But he wants to do this. He wants to fight this as much as I do."
On Tuesday morning, Elvira rolled out of bed, slipped on a T-shirt that reads "Who would Jesus deport?" and wandered out to a living room covered in protest posters and handwritten letters from supporters around the country.
Since her son left on his latest tour, she's talked to him every day by phone. Saul tells his mother he wants to come back home to Chicago. And he's afraid that his mother will be deported if he isn't there to protect her.
"He's sad because he thinks he's going to stay over there in Mexico," Elvira said. "As soon as he got there, he told me he didn't like it. He wants to come home, but at the same time he's happy because he knows that he's doing something to help me."
Upon hearing of the vote Tuesday in the Mexican Congress, Elvira joined several friends and congregation members in the church's cramped kitchen to celebrate with grape juice and a prayer.
"We want to thank you, God, that three parties that can't agree on anything … can agree that a mother and her child should not be separated," said family friend and associate pastor Beti Guevara. Then the group raised its glasses and cheered: "To Saulito! Our lobbyist!"
Tobar reported from Mexico City and Huffstutter from Chicago. Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061115/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_chavez_s_challenger_1
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Rosales questions Chavez rule in Caracas
By Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela - The best hope for many Venezuelans fed up with what they see as increasingly autocratic rule under President Hugo Chavez may be a gravelly voiced political veteran with a reputation for boldness and grit.
On the campaign trail, Manuel Rosales pumps his fists in the air, provoking screams of near-religious fervor from thousands of exuberant supporters. The gray-haired 53-year-old has managed to galvanize the fractured opposition as its unity candidate to face Chavez in Dec. 3 elections, and is drawing giant crowds even though he trails the incumbent by 20 points or more in most opinion polls.
"Democracy is at risk with this government, and Venezuelans need to unite to defend it," Rosales told The Associated Press, accusing Chavez of wanting to be president-for-life like his friend Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Rosales gets his message out forcefully through private Venezuelan TV stations and newspapers that carry a steady stream of Chavez criticism. He gets limited coverage on state television, which sometimes interrupts his speeches or films them from odd or unflattering angles.
Billboards for Rosales show him surging through campaign crowds and bear the slogan "Dare to change!" But Chavez billboards are much more numerous, and the opposition has complained that when Chavez seizes the airwaves to speak for hours, it amounts to an unfair campaign practice.
Rosales, who stepped down as governor of Zulia state to run for president, is one of just a few opposition politicians to remain a regional power broker in defiance of the pro-Chavez tide. He was the only non-Chavista to win a governor's race two years ago.
And while he has many middle- and upper-class supporters, Rosales has sought to make inroads among Chavez's traditional support base — the poor.
He strongly criticizes what he calls handout social programs at the heart of Chavez's populist agenda, saying money is tossed about to secure political patronage. Instead, Rosales proposes creating a state-issued debit card to directly distribute one-fifth of Venezuela's oil income among the country's poorest families.
Many Venezuelans say the candidate, a cattle rancher who has been active in politics for three decades, lacks Chavez's charisma. But in Venezuela's highly polarized society, this former mayor of Maracaibo, the country's second-largest city, has seen the campaign take on religious overtones.
At rallies, supporters press wooden crosses or figurines of Christ into Rosales' hands. Others give him pictures of saints or bottles of holy water — displays of devotion also common among followers of Chavez, who often invokes Jesus as an inspiration.
When Rosales walks through crowds, supporters often try to push past security guards to shake his hand, hug or kiss him.
"He's the only hope we have to get rid of this government. That's why we love him," said Roselyn Fuentes, one of tens of thousands who joined a campaign march across Caracas.
"Take a look at this," Rosales said while riding in a sport-utility vehicle after a campaign stop, rolling up his sleeves to reveal bruises and scratches on his forearms. "That's the affection of the people."
Some give Rosales poems written in his honor or notes asking for help finding a job — displays of devotion also seen among Chavez's backers.
Chavez avoids referring to Rosales by name, often calling him the "ex-governor" and depicting him as a U.S. pawn. Some pro-Chavez campaign banners read: "Vote against the devil — Vote against the empire."
But Rosales denies any links to Washington, insisting he's an independent-minded democrat speaking for Venezuelans whom Chavez has betrayed. And he's tried to distance himself from the corrupt political class that ran the country for four decades until Chavez's 1998 election.
In fact, until recently Chavez and Rosales were on speaking terms, the centrist governor being one of the few opposition leaders to occasionally attend presidential functions. That changed in December when Rosales' small party, A New Time, joined a boycott of congressional elections.
Some Chavez supporters poke fun at Rosales, noting he has stumbled over words. His response: "Maybe I don't talk so pretty, but I'm honest."
Rosales also has warned he could call street protests after next month's vote if he thinks it hasn't been conducted fairly. Friends say Rosales isn't likely to back down. They say that when Rosales won his first election in his hometown in 1979, local political bosses tried to tamper with the results — and that a gun was fired into the air during an argument among Rosales, his opponents and soldiers guarding the ballots.
Rosales claims not to remember exactly what happened, saying "problems, attempts at fraud arise in many elections and everyone defends what's theirs. There was a problem there and I defended what was mine."
Asked who fired the gun, Rosales grinned and responded: "I don't remember. Maybe it was a firework."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061115/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_rosales_bio_box_1
November 15, 2006
Biography box for Manuel Rosales
By The Associated Press
NAME: Manuel Rosales.
AGE: 53.
PERSONAL DETAILS: Owns a cattle ranch, is married to Evelyn Trejo and has 10 children.
EDUCATION: Had to quit law school at Venezuela's University of the Andes at age 19 when his father died to support his mother and nine siblings.
CAREER: A veteran politician who has received wide support as the opposition's unity candidate. Currently governor of the western state of Zulia, though he has stepped down temporarily to run for president. His first elected office was as town councilor in his home town of Santa Barbara beginning in 1979. Elected to Zulia state legislature in 1983. Elected mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, in 1996. Elected Zulia's governor in 2000 and 2004.
PLATFORM: Rosales plans to fight poverty by creating a state-issued social debit card to directly distribute one-fifth of Venezuela's oil income among roughly 2.5 million of the country's poorest families.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/wl_nm/venezuela_usa_chavez_dc
November 15, 2006
Venezuela's Chavez is losing influence, says U.S
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is losing influence worldwide and his "rhetorical bombs" against President George W. Bush have back-fired, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, currently the no. 2 official in the State Department, pointed to Venezuela's failure to win a seat on the U.N. Security Council as a sign of the firebrand Venezuelan leader's waning importance.
"People see him for what he is, he is somebody who divides, who throws little bombs -- rhetorical bombs into rooms -- and he seeks to tear people down," Burns told a security conference at the State Department.
Burns said the speech Chavez made at the U.N.'s General Assembly in September, in which he called Bush the devil, had cost his country an open U.N. Security Council seat that ultimately went to Panama.
"The speech he made that was so critical and so objectionable and critical of President Bush -- that backfired," Burns said. "I think Chavez is losing influence."
Burns predicted Chavez would lose influence, but several influential Latin American leaders have rallied around the Venezuelan leader in recent weeks.
This week President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leader of Brazil, Latin America's economic and diplomatic heavyweight, embraced and heaped praise on his fellow leftist during a visit to Venezuela, and predicted he would win reelection next month.
Most recent polls in Venezuela show Chavez easily winning the December 3 election with more than 50 percent of the vote.
Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the United States but has very strained ties with Washington, which Chavez says is his no. 1 enemy.
Chavez is a close ally of Bolivia's President Evo Morales but Burns said he hoped the Bolivian leader would change his allegiance to more moderate Latin American leaders.
"We would like to encourage President Morales to go with the mainstream (in Latin America)," Burns said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_oaxaca_unrest_1
Wed Nov 15, 2006
Oaxaca governor does not give address
By Rebeca Romero, Associated Press Writer
OAXACA, Mexico - The governor of Mexico's conflict-ridden Oaxaca state sent a deputy Wednesday to hand-deliver his annual progress report to lawmakers after protesters threatened to interrupt his address if he gave it in person.
As lawmakers received Gov. Ulises Ruiz's report, which touted the state government's achievements in fighting poverty in Oaxaca, protesters marched in the city center and threw rocks at federal police, who responded with tear gas.
"My government will not weaken in the face of this harassment by a small internal group nor will it be conquered by the outside imposition that is seeking to defeat the constitutional order and stop the development of Oaxaca," Ruiz said in the report.
Protests demanding the resignation of Ruiz, whose term ends in 2010, have roiled the city for five months. The demonstrators accuse Ruiz of rigging the 2004 election to win office and of using violence against his opponents.
The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday warned U.S. citizens to avoid travel to Oaxaca and to "remain vigilant" throughout Mexico.
Protest leader Florentino Lopez had threatened that demonstrators would disrupt Ruiz's address if he tried to deliver it in person.
Instead of delivering a customary live speech at the state legislature, Ruiz sent state Interior Secretary Heliodoro Diaz to deliver the written report, state government spokeswoman Luz Divina Zarate said.
A taped message from the governor summarizing his past year in office was broadcast later Wednesday on television and radio stations.
In his message, Ruiz said the situation in his region requires an "honest, clear and quick response" from the federal government.
President Vicente Fox's administration, which has made little progress in its talks with demonstrators, has said Ruiz needs to reach an agreement with protesters or resign. But Ruiz on Wednesday vowed to stay put.
He called on President-elect Felipe Calderon, who takes office Dec. 1, to help him resolve the crisis.
"You have here in Oaxaca, the opportunity to add to your democratic legitimacy," Ruiz told Calderon, whose narrow July 2 victory sparked protests in the capital Mexico City by leftists who cried fraud.
Last month, Fox sent more than 4,000 federal police to quell the unrest in Oaxaca, once one of Mexico's top tourist destinations. The protests have led to at least nine deaths, mostly of leftists who have been shot dead by gangs of gunmen.
On Tuesday, the state's attorney general released a report saying an American activist-journalist who was killed while filming a gunbattle during recent demonstrations was shot at point-blank range, indicating the fatal shots came from nearby leftist protesters.
Lopez, the protest leader, accused officials on Tuesday of fabricating evidence to win the release of two local officials held in connection with the Oct. 27 killing of Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York.
Will, 36, was filming a group of leftist protesters who clashed with a group of armed men in Santa Lucia, a working-class town on the outskirts of Oaxaca city. Both sides fired. It is not clear who shot first.
Will was shot twice in the abdomen and died on the way to hospital.
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-11-15T205352Z_01_N15480870_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-CUBA-AUDIT.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-domesticNews-2
Wed. Nov. 15, 2006
U.S. funds for democracy in Cuba spent on cashmere
By Adriana Garcia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. funds intended to promote democracy in Cuba have been used to buy crab meat, cashmere sweaters, computer games and chocolates, according to a U.S. congressional audit published on Wednesday.
The survey by the Government Accountability Office found little oversight and accountability in the program, which paid out $76 million between 1996 and 2005 to support Cuban dissidents, independent journalists, academics and others. It also found that 95 percent of the grants were issued without competitive tenders.
To protect recipients from prosecution, none of the money from the U.S. Agency for International Development or State Department is paid in cash to people in Cuba. A Cuban law sends citizens to jail for receiving money from the U.S. government.
Instead, the funds are distributed to Cuban-American groups in Miami, the heartland of opposition to Cuban President Fidel Castro, and in Washington, and used to buy medicines, books, shortwave radios and other goods that are smuggled into Cuba.
President George W. Bush has proposed increasing spending on Cuba-related programs, including propaganda transmissions by Radio and TV Marti, by $80 million over the next two years.
Critics have long charged the grants are aimed more at winning votes in Miami than triggering political change on the communist island, where the now-ailing Castro has ruled since his 1959 revolution.
Out of 10 recipients of public money reviewed by the auditors, three failed to keep adequate financial records, the Government Accountability Office said. A lot of the money was used to pay smugglers, or "mules, to avoid U.S. restrictions on taking goods to Cuba.
'THEY THINK IT'S NOT COLD THERE'
The auditors questioned checks written out to some staff members, questionable travel expenses and payments to a manager's family. One group acknowledged selling books it was supposed to distribute under the democracy-promoting program.
One grantee "could not justify some purchases made with USAID funds, including a gas chain saw, computer gaming equipment and software (including Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations), a mountain bike, leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates," the report said. The auditors did not identify the recipients.
Juan Carlos Acosta, executive director of Miami-based anti-Castro group Cuban Democratic Action, told the Miami Herald he sent those items to Cuba, apart from the chain saw.
"These people are going hungry. They never get any chocolate there," Acosta said, according to the newspaper.
He said he bought the jackets and sweaters at a sale.
"They (the auditors) think it's not cold there (in Cuba)," Acosta said. "At $30 it's a bargain because cashmere is expensive. They were asking for sweaters, from Cuba."
Acosta did not immediately return a phone call from Reuters.
The audit was ordered by U.S lawmakers opposed to the 44-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, and they said the findings confirmed the need for a thorough review of U.S. policy.
"Let me just say that, to continue a current level of funding, given the results and given the disarray this program seems to be in, would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars," Rep. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, told reporters in Washington.
(Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Miami)
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_detainee
Wed Nov 15, 2006
Lawyers try to stop Gitmo med procedure
By Andrew O. Selsky, Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - An attorney for a Guantanamo Bay detainee has asked a judge to block a planned medical procedure on the prisoner's heart, saying that performing it at the U.S. base puts his life at risk.
Saifullah A. Paracha, a 59-year-old multimillionaire businessman from Karachi, Pakistan, already had one heart attack while in U.S. custody and in recent days has suffered chest pains, his lawyers said. Doctors plan to perform a cardiac catheterization on Paracha this month at the isolated Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeast Cuba.
Gaillard T. Hunt, one of Paracha's attorneys, asked a federal court in Washington Tuesday to block it, saying Guantanamo lacks the medical facilities for the procedure and sufficient backup in case anything goes wrong. Hunt said it should be carried out in a hospital in the United States or Pakistan.
"There is no excuse for risking petitioner Paracha's life by subjecting him to this procedure at Guantanamo," Hunt said in an emergency petition, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press.
Transferring Paracha to a hospital in the United States could present legal complications for the Bush administration, which has maintained that because the Guantanamo detainees were picked up overseas and are being held on foreign land, they may be detained indefinitely without charges or trial. A new law strips foreign "enemy combatants" held anywhere by the United States of their right to contest their detention in court. That law is being challenged.
Paracha's legal team has no ulterior motives, said another of his lawyers, Zachary Philip Katznelson.
"Our goal here is not anything duplicitous or underhanded to get court jurisdiction," he said in a telephone interview. "It is to get decent medical care."
The government is to reply to Hunt's petition by Friday. The case was expected to be argued in court on Monday, Hunt said.
Katznelson said he found Paracha chained to a bed at the base hospital when he visited Guantanamo on Nov. 7 and 9.
"All four limbs were shackled to the bed," and there wasn't enough slack in the chains to enable Paracha to turn over, he complained.
During a cardiac catheterization, a doctor inserts a thin plastic tube into an artery or vein in the arm or leg and pushes it into the chambers of the heart or into the coronary arteries to measure blood pressure within the heart and blood oxygen levels.
Army Lt. Col. Lora Tucker said from Guantanamo that its medical facilities "are excellent" and that additional specialists and medical equipment could be brought to the U.S. Navy base as needed.
"We are committed to preserving the health and lives of all detainees," Tucker said in an e-mail to AP. She declined to discuss Paracha because it was against policy to discuss a specific detainee's heath.
There have been three deaths among detainees at Guantanamo since it began taking in men captured in Afghanistan and other areas in January 2002 — all suicides on June 10. Some 430 men are currently held at the prison camp.
On Nov. 7, Paracha suffered chest pains at Guantanamo and a medical technician was brought in. His pulse had dropped to 46 beats per minute and his blood pressure was around 90 over 58, Katznelson said in a statement to the court.
Paracha suffered his first heart attack in 1995 and had a second one in 2003 while in U.S. military custody at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Katznelson said. His family in Pakistan, concerned about his health, has urged Pakistan's government to seek his return home for treatment.
A computer science graduate of the New York Institute of Technology, Paracha was arrested on arrival in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2003, held in isolation for 14 months in Afghanistan and then sent to Guantanamo.
Paracha has acknowledged meeting Osama bin Laden twice, but denied making investments for al-Qaida members, translating statements for bin Laden, joining in a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States or recommending that nuclear weapons be used against U.S. soldiers.
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http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/142455/1/4536
Tue., Nov. 14, 2006
Affirmative Action, Immigrants Rights Lose Big at Ballot Box
Aaron Glantz / OneWorld US
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 14 (OneWorld) - Voters in Michigan gave 58 percent approval to a measure banning Affirmative Action in the public sector last week. It was just one in a series of a measures voters approved nationwide that many activists see as a setback to racial justice.
The main mover and shaker behind Michigan's ban on Affirmative Action was Ward Connerly, a former University of California Regent who rose to prominence ten years ago when he lead a successful campaign to eliminate Affirmative Action in California. In the closing days of the campaign, Connerly--who is black--proudly accepted the Ku Klux Klan's endorsement of the initiative.
"If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them," Connerly said in a video that affirmative action proponents circulated on the online video sharing Web site YouTube. "Thank them for finally seeing that equality is right."
Proponents of affirmative action are going to court to stop implementation of the initiative. The racial justice group By Any Means Necessary filed suit saying states cannot pre-empt federal anti-discrimination laws. Such claims were tried and ultimately failed when the Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case against Proposition 209, California's precursor to Michigan's so-called Measure 2.
"I had a chance to talk to the former director of admissions at the University of California (UC) at Berkeley and he painted a pretty stark picture of what's happened at UC-Berkeley and UCLA," said David Waymeyer, spokesperson for One United Michigan, a coalition of more than 200 organizations including the League of Women Voters, the Catholic Church, and the AARP.
A University of California report released this year found that underrepresented minorities now make up 45 percent of public high school graduates in the state, but just 20 percent of UC students and just 16 percent of students at the system's flagship Berkeley campus. Ten years ago, people of color made up a smaller percentage of high school graduates, but 27 percent of UC-Berkeley students.
"There's been a real change both in terms of the students who are there and the problems that the lack of diversity causes to the entire academic program there," Waymeyer added. "We're very concerned that those very same problems will be imported to Michigan."
Waymeyer takes heart that the head of the University of Michigan Mary Sue Coleman continues to speak out for diversity on campus.
"I will not allow our university to go down the path of mediocrity," she told reporters after results showed Measure 2 headed for victory.
She asked the university's lawyers to examine every possible avenue to continue diversity programs.
"Diversity makes us strong," she said. "It's too critical to our mission, too critical to our excellence to abandon."
Anti-immigrant measures also did well at the ballot box this election year. Voters in Arizona passed initiatives making English the state's official language and barring undocumented immigrants from going free on bail, receiving state sponsored education or child care, or receiving punitive damages in lawsuits.
Voters in Colorado approved two immigration measures. Referendum H, which denies a state tax credit to employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, got 50.8 percent of the vote, according to unofficial returns. Referendum K, which directs the state attorney general to sue the federal government to demand enforcement of immigration laws, got 56 percent.
But immigrant voters will have a stronger voice in 2008, says Mariana Bustamante, education director of the American Civil Liberties Union's immigrant rights project. That's because many Latinos who mobilized against HR4437, the harsh immigration bill passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year, will have completed the process of becoming citizens.
"For this election it was a little bit too soon," Bustamante told OneWorld. "There were a lot of people--permanent residents--who wanted to vote, but there wasn't enough time for them to become citizens and register. So we're going to see a lot of the effects of the marches in 2008 and afterwards."
Immigrant voters did win a few victories this election year. In two high-profile races where illegal immigration was at issue, the anti-immigrant candidate lost big. In Arizona, Republicans J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf lost handily to more moderate voices.
Hayworth, a six-term congressman, who wrote a book entitled Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security and the War on Terror, called for a three-year ban on legal immigration from Mexico.
Graf, a former state representative and member of the Minuteman vigilantes, supported calls to reinstate the so-called "Operation Wetback," a 1950s federal deportation program that rounded up thousands of undocumented immigrants. Graf garnered just 42 percent of the vote in his run for a seat vacated by moderate Republican Jim Kolbe.
Link Profile: Immigrants In the United States
http://www.afsc.org/immigrants-rights/learn/in-us.htm
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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/13/18329510.php
Monday Nov 13th, 2006 8:33 PM
Struggle for Immigrant Rights Continues
by Amelia and Lacei- Youth & Student ANSWER
Student Organizer from Columbia University to Speak on Struggle Against Minutemen
This week Karina García, the political chair of the Chicano Caucus at Columbia University, is on a West Coast speaking tour. On October 4, she helped lead a large protest against Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the anti-immigrant Minuteman project. She and other students went onstage with anti-racist banners while Gilchrist was speaking and were attacked by Minutemen thugs. Faced with overwhelming opposition Gilchrist terminated his speech.
Days later, Karina Garcia and Gilchrist squared off on a nationally broadcast debate on Democracy Now. Gilchrist took off his microphone and stormed out of the studio in the first minutes of the debate. Although they were physically attacked by Minutemen on October 4, it is the anti-racist protesters who have been targeted by the media, university officials, and NYC Mayor Bloomberg. Karina Garcia in an effort to continue the struggle for immigrant rights, is telling the story of the anti-Minutemen protestors and the struggle against fascism and racism. She has been speaking to students and communities and in the mass media. All over the country people are learning about this struggle and showing their support for the students at Columbia University.
2006 has been witness to a historical awakening of a mass movement demanding amnesty for all immigrants in the United States. On March 10th organizers and activists were stunned to see hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of Chicago in response to HR4437, a racist anti-immigrant bill that criminalized millions of undocumented workers. The overwhelming power of this action led to the organization of the March 25 demonstration in LA, an action that drew millions of militant individuals culminating into the largest demonstration in the history of the United States.
The energy behind the growing movement against HR4437 inspired the people to expand their demands to full amnesty for all immigrants. Following March 25th the nation witnessed countless student walkouts in cities large and small from Universities all the way to elementary schools. May 1st 2006 the National Boycott was called, reinvigorating the working class struggle in the United States by reclaiming a very important day for working class people all over the world, May Day. The May Day demonstrations of 2006 marked the largest national protests in the history of this country and ultimately brought about a political strike.
As the movement continued to gain momentum the ruling class in their classical tradition implemented a fierce and decisive backlash just as was done during the civil rights movement. The wealthiest and most powerful in this country threw their weight behind a racist, fascist, hate organization to divide the working class in the United States. During the Civil Rights movement it was the KKK and this time they’ve changed their name to The Minuteman. The discourse is different the hateful message is still the same. The ruling class would like us to believe our economic woes are consequence of an “immigration crisis” when it is clear that the only crisis facing our country is the consolidation of our nations wealth in the pockets of few.
Reacting to the mass people’s movement the mainstream media, in a clear sign of unity, pushed the image of The Minutemen as a patriotic group advocating for the rights of the working class. The barrage of positive minutemen coverage was paired with “news analysis” on the crisis facing the everyday working class Americans implying their economic struggle and their lack of employment is a result of an influx of immigration. This ludicrous scapegoating was meant to distract the American people away from the exploitative nature of the ruling class.
Today the drive for racist xenophobia by the minutemen and their allies in the ruling class continues. The struggle at Columbia University marks an important victory for the Immigrant Rights Movement. Columbia University an ivy-league institution with clear ties to the ruling class offered Gilchrist a twenty thousand dollar honorarium to speak to the students legitimizing the racist hate group’s message. The determination and success of the students who took the stage on October 4 exemplifies the force of this movement, the message of the ruling class is no longer welcomed in its coveted institutions. The students of Columbia University and the millions of people who have participated in actions around the country have set the stage for change. They have shown that when the people to take to the streets and bravely confront the racist anti-immigrant propaganda it forces the ruling class to make concessions as was seen by the defeat of HR4437, therefore it is absolutely necessary that we continue on in the struggle. We must demand amnesty for all and continue to confront the racist divisive tactics of the ruling class in whatever form they take. Down with the Minutemen!!!
Karina Garcia will be visiting the Central Coast on Thursday November 16:
• UCSC at 5:30 pm in the Guzman rm at Oakes College
• Watsonville at 7:30 in the Brown Berets Office, 406 Main St., Suite 408A
She will also be hitting the Central Coast Airwaves:
• Listen to an interview with her on Los Mariposas on FRSC 101.1, Wednesday November 15th at 6pm
• Live in Studio on University Grapevine with Bruce Bratton on KZSC 88.1 at 4:30 on Thursday November 16th
Her visit to the Central Coast is sponsored by:
Youth and Student ANSWER
The Brown Berets
The Santa Cruz Anti-Imperialist League
For more information please contact the ANSWER Coalition:
415-821-6545
http://www.actionsf.org
Email: answer [at] actionsf.org
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Lunes; Nov. 13, '06= Latin American News Report
http://aztlannet-news-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/lunes-nov-13-06-latin-american-news.html
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Viernes, Noviembre 10, 2006= Oaxaca News Report
http://aztlannet-news-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/viernes-noviembre-10-2006-oaxaca-news.html
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http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/609/609_04_Mendoza.shtml
November 10, 2006= A striking teacher from Oaxaca describes...
“Our fight for social and economic justice”
Interview with Fernando Mendoza
++++++++++++++++
What you can do! To add your name to this letter--as well as for information on the struggle in Oaxaca and on events to honor Brad Will--visit the Friends of Brad Will Web site. @
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org/
Oaxaca Video Collective Needs Your Support.
http://elenemigocomun.net/368
Email= justin@riseup.net
BRADLEY: In Memoriam
http://video.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/551.shtml
Video= Mexican government killed american journalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22L-xEVRqY
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http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3688
November 8, 2006
Oaxaca Fights Back! Laura Carlsen, IRC / Editor: John Feffer, IRC
Laura Carlsen is director of the IRC Americas Program in Mexico City, where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for the past two decades. The Americas Program is online @ http://americas.irc-online.org/
In regional lore, Oaxacans have a reputation for being like the tlacuache. A recurring figure in Mexican mythology, the tlacuache plays dead when cornered. But woe to the enemy who thinks the battle is over. The small but fierce creature merely awaits a more propitious moment to fight back…
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Liberation Now!!
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Key Links=
* http://www.amlo.org.mx/
* http://www.centralamericanews.com/
* http://www.eco.utexas.edu/%7Ehmcleave/chiapas95.html
* http://granmai.cubaweb.com/ingles/
* http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/
* http://www.mexicodaily.com/
* http://www.mylatinonews.com/
* http://www.southamericadaily.com/
* http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/
* http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/front/v-english/
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