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Above, Greta Willis tells Peoples Assembly how Baltimore police killed her 14-year-old son. Below, crowd welcomes call for community control of police.
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EDITORIALS 6
CHINA & AFRICA Dispelling the myths 7 NO WAR ON SYRIA Protests coast to coast
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death by U.S.-NATO mercenaries. Barron was a Black Panther Party member or, as he put it, always a Panther. Whenever the police kill another innocent person, Barron comes forward to comfort family members and demand justice. For several years, Barron has been the only one of 51 City Council members to vote against billionaire Mayor Michael Bloombergs cutback budgets. Thats how the 12th richest person in the U.S., according to Forbes magazine, cracks his whip over the citys elected representatives. Hakeem Jeffries is Brooklyns version of Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Both are for charter schools. Their campaigns are lavishly supported by the financial elite who seek to privatize education. Jeffries even attacked an NAACP lawsuit against unfair subsidies for private charter schools. Thats a reason why American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 37, with over 100,000 members, endorsed Barron. So did the Amsterdam News and Black Star News. The December 12th Movement played a key role in Barrons campaign. Workers World Party is proud to have supported Charles Barron. Anti-imperialist, not anti-Jewish The Big Lie used to mobilize the white racist vote against Barron is that hes anti-Jewish for defending the oppressed Palestinian people. Along with former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney, Barron led the Viva Palestina convoy from the U.S. to occupied Gaza in 2009. Among the convoys Jewish members who delivered aid was Sharon Eolis, one of the earliest members of Workers World Party. The capitalist media never reported that progressive Jewish people were supporting Barrons candidacy. Instead they publicized a news conference of racist politicians who gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage to denounce Barron. Among them was former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who attacked Barron as a snake and a viper. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 12) Isnt that how Nazi propaganda described Jewish people? Koch was elected mayor in 1977 on the racist plank of restoring the death penalty. Kochs 12-year reign in City Hall was marked by his cops killing more than a hundred people. Among them was the Black grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs, who was killed by two shotgun blasts fired by police officer Stephen Sullivan on Oct. 29, 1984. Bumpurs crime was owing $417.10 in back rent. Also attacking Barron at that conference was Assemblymember Dov Hikind, a former member of the racist Jewish Defense League and a follower of convicted terrorist Meir Kahane. This smear campaign culminated in a phony endorsement of Barron by the neo-Nazi David Duke. As the June 25 Black Star News suggested, this was a ploy to discredit Barron. Isnt it more credible that Duke got a call from someone who told him: I will make it worth your while if you endorse Charles Barron? In 1991, 60 percent of white voters in Louisiana voted to make David Duke their governor. Only the mobilization of the Black community prevented this neo-Nazi from being elected.
In the U.S. Baltimore Peoples Assembly demands justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 How they kept Barron out of Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Postal bigwig nearly arrested at hunger-strike rally. . . . . . . . . 3 Crowd occupies P.O. slated for closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 On the picket line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Survivors of racist sterilization dissed by N.C. Senate . . . . . . . 4 Arizona activists condemn immigration decision. . . . . . . . . . . 4 Anti-war protests held in many cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Syria war part of U.S. colonial plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Resist coups in Latin America! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cuban asks court to be allowed to go home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Around the world Turkey puts progressives on trial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Africans applaud Chinas role in development . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Editorials Free Lynne Stewart! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 That health care plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Noticias En Espaol Latinoamrica contra el golpe en Paraguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Workers World 55 West 17 Street New York, N.Y. 10011 Phone: 212.627.2994 E-mail: ww@workers.org Web: www.workers.org Vol. 54, No. 27 July 12, 2012 Closing date: July 2, 2012 Editor: Deirdre Griswold Technical Editor: Lal Roohk Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell, Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead, Gary Wilson West Coast Editor: John Parker Contributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe, Greg Butterfield, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel, Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash, Milt Neidenberg, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Betsey Piette, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria Rubac Technical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger, Bob McCubbin, Maggie Vascassenno Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martnez, Carlos Vargas Supporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator Copyright 2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World (ISSN-1070-4205) is published weekly except the first week of January by WW Publishers, 55 W. 17 St., N.Y., N.Y. 10011. Phone: 212.627.2994. Subscriptions: One year: $30; institutions: $35. Letters to the editor may be condensed and edited. Articles can be freely reprinted, with credit to Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., New York, NY 10011. Back issues and individual articles are available on microfilm and/or photocopy from University Microfilms International, 300 Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. A searchable archive is available on the Web at www.workers.org. A headline digest is available via e-mail subscription. Subscription information is at workers.org/email.php. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
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Postal worker John Dennie, who tried to make citizens arrest of Postmaster General Donahue.
to overcome the financial hurdle. Postmaster General Donahoe has announced that overnight, single-piece, first-class mail will be phased out beginning July 1, that half of the 475 mailsorting plants in the country will be closed, and that service hours in 50 percent of all the post offices will be drastically reduced. He also wants to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. The Postmaster General is sending the service into a death spiral, says Matt McAuliffe, a mailhandler and hunger striker from Denver. By slowing the mail one to two days, the postal service will drive away customers. Those most dependent on the mail, the elderly, the poor and rural communities, will be hit the hardest. (dclabor.org) Nationwide actions Called by Communities and Postal Workers United, letter carriers, mail handlers, mail processing workers and community supporters in cities around the country organized the Hunger Strike Back to demand that the PAEA be replaced by fair legislation that saves, not buries, the 250-year-old postal service.
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This is the second in a series of historical articles leading up to the Sept. 2 March on Wall Street South in Charlotte during the Democratic National Convention.
targeted; the consent color. Often the process and parental women were not approval were questold that they had tionably applied. been sterilized until Democratic govthey were released ernor, Bev Perdue, from the hospital, had proposed to set she said. Most states aban- Fannie Lou Hamer, who herself was unknow- aside up to $10 mildoned their efforts ingly sterilized, became a great Civil Rights lion in the upcoming leader. Pictured here, she is challenging the budget in order to at sterilization after all-white Mississippi delegation to the 1964 give $50,000 to each World War II, when Democratic Convention. remaining survivor. the practice became associated with Nazi Germanys geno- With the backing of Republican speaker, cidal programs for racial purity. North Thom Tillis, the proposal did pass the Carolina stood out because it actively in- House. Shortly afterward, however, it creased funding and resources for its pro- was rejected by the State Senate. Legislagram after the war and went on operating tors expressed concern that passing the quietly, with decades of little to no public proposal would open the door for reparations for the descendants of those who debate. In some North Carolina counties where had been enslaved until 1865. The sterilization program finally ended racism was especially rampant, doctors would perform operations without prior in 1974, but it left a legacy that is still alive approval and the eugenics board would in North Carolina. The survivors are livbackdate permission to cover up the il- ing reminders of an era that openly tramlegal procedures. An estimated 2,000 pled on the human rights of the poor and women 18 years old and younger were the powerless.
MARXISM, REPARATIONS
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LOS ANGELES
BUFFALO
PHOTO MARIE KULLMAN
to Stop FBI Repression. Workers World newspapers with the headline Hands off Syria were passed out and well received. A spirited rush-hour rally was held in downtown OAKLAND, CALIF., to demand U.S./NATO hands off Syria. Speakers representing Courage to Resist, UNAC, the Bradley Manning Defense Network, Workers World Party, the Peace and Freedom Party and others made strong statements against U.S. intervention in Syria and Iran. Activists with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice demonstrated June 27 in downtown DETROIT. They were joined by local peace activists who have held weekly anti-war vigils at the busy intersection of Nine Mile Road and Woodward Avenue for close to 10 years. Three young cyclists stopped and joined the demonstration, leading the group in chanting, No more war! Numerous honks from passing motorists sounded support for the action. Protesters turned out at the downtown Federal Building in BUFFALO, N.Y., in
solidarity with the peoples of Syria and Iran and against the growing threats. The press conference and rally were organized by the local chapters of Citizen Action, the International Action Center, MoveOn. org, Peace Action NY, Veterans for Peace, Occupy Buffalo, Burning Books and the Western NY Peace Center. Activists demonstrated outside the Federal Building in PHILADELPHIA on June 27 to engage rush-hour crowds. Participants included the Philadelphia International Action Center, the Brandywine Peace Community, Socialist Action and members of Occupy Philadelphia. An informational flyer was well received by passersby. Protesters In SALT LAKE CITY also gathered outside the local Federal Building. In 2011, the federal government spent 52 percent of the federal budget on the military. This money could be spent on education, free health care or other programs that are beneficial to the people, said organizer Travis Gray. In CHICAGO, the crowd chanted, Not
another Libya! Hands off Syria! during a June 26 picket outside the Obama reelection campaign headquarters. When a small group tried to disrupt the protest, calling for the overthrow of the Syrian government, Joe Iosbaker of UNAC explained to the crowd: If anyone here believes that intervention by the U.S. will aid the people of Syria, theyre wrong. The U.S. isnt threatening war with Syria because they care for the Arab people. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of 1 million, mainly Arabs. Go tell the Iraqi people that the U.S. government cares for Arab lives! In MINNEAPOLIS, people joined an emergency protest at the Federal Building. The action was initiated by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition and endorsed by other groups, including the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Speaking at the end of the protest, Meredith Aby of MPAC and the Anti-War Committee urged participation in upcoming protests at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Information for this article came from Ellie Dorritie, Judy Greenspan, Martha Grevatt, Frank Neisser, John Parker, Betsey Piette and fightbacknews.org.
MINNEAPOLIS
FIGHTBACKNEWS.ORG
DETROIT WWP FORUM ternational conference in Geneva earlier that day agreed to the plan, although at Russias insistence the plan left open the possibility of Syrias President Bashar al-Assad being allowed to remain as part of an interim government. Syrian opposition groups instigated and supported by PHOTO: LEONA MCELEVENE the United States and other imperialist powers and their Some of the crowd at June 30 meeting. Sara Flounders, in puppets rejected the U.N. front, second from left, with sign. agreement. Flounders said U.S. Secretary the audacity to state that those with blood of State Hillary Clinton remained ada- on their hands cannot stay in power. mant that Assad has to go, and even had Flounders reviewed the background of the Syrian conflict, referring the audience to a fact sheet published in Workers World newspaper which gave a timeline of U.S. and Western interference in Syria. (See The U.S. & Syria: Facts you should know at workers.org.) She discussed the shooting down by Syria of a Turkish F4 fighter jet. Will that be the pretext for U.S./NATO intervention? So far, not yet. But this or any other incident could be used as a pretext at any time to justify the imperialist military onslaught. She also discussed the role of sanctions as a de facto act of war. Flounders called the war moves by the U.S., NATO and Turkey against Syria and Iran part of the U.S. plan to reconquer and recolonize the globe, to take hold of a very strategic region that has oil and a skilled working class. She described imperialist war as massively destructive and massively profitable, with trillions of dollars in government-subsidized profits for the arms makers at the expense of human needs and social programs. The ruling class of capitalists makes a
WW PHOTO: G. DUNKEL
Continued on page 7
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editorial
t is never admitted by U.S. government spokespeople who love to shout out about human rights violations if the target is China or Iran that the United States has political prisoners. Plenty of them. Many of them have been imprisoned since the Black, Native and Latino/a liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. But two political prisoners, whose fate is linked, did make it into the media as June ended. One was Egyptian-born Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 on trumped-up seditious conspiracy charges connected with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Sheik Rahman, who is blind and ill, has been imprisoned since his 1993 arrest. The new president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, publicly promised Egyptians on June 29 that his government would try to get Sheik Rahman released on humanitarian grounds. A day earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit confirmed the 2010 decision of Federal District Court Judge John Koeltl to increase an already
on trial
By John Catalinotto Aye Berktay coordinated worldwide mobilizations in 2002 and 2003 trying to stop the U.S.-British war of aggression against Iraq. This writer met her at the European Social Forum in Paris in November 2003. She was representing the Turkish peace movement; I was representing the International Action Center as part of the U.S. anti-war movement. We had been unable to stop the imperialists from launching the war and occupying Iraq. We would at least make sure their media werent the only ones writing the wars history. The movement organized a series of peoples tribunals pointing to the governments and generals of the U.S., Britain and their allies as the top war criminals of the 21st century. Berktay came across during the Social Forum as someone who would defend her ideas, but would also be aware that a united front of organizations would be needed to carry out the actions. And she would make sure to hold it together. One imagined she might play that role also in Turkey, where the last of the tribunals found George W. Bush, Tony Blair and the others guilty of war crimes. Thus, it was with anger and dismay that we learned that Berktay was one of many political activists that the Turkish authorities arrested in October 2011. That the Turkish government is repressive is no surprise; there must be thousands unjustly arrested and imprisoned in that NATO country. Remember, the Turkish regime is right now threatening its neighbor, Syria, in collaboration with its imperialist senior partners in Western Europe and North America. Below are excerpts from a statement issued by those who participated in the 2004-2005 tribunals. We fully support their effort to send a delegation to Turkey to observe the trial of Berktay and others and to show their solidarity with the political prisoners: During the past three years, the Turkish state has imprisoned some 8,000 citizens under the guise of fighting terrorism. In a wave of detentions known as the KCK operations, it has targeted activists, academics, journalists, lawyers, students, elected officials, translators and publishers on account of their democratic activities in support of the rights demanded by Kurdish citizens in Turkey. In particular, numerous members and supporters of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which has 36 elected representatives in the Turkish Parliament have been criminalized and imprisoned on the pretext that they are alleged members of the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), a group which the Turkish state claims to be the urban branch of an armed organization known
Aye Berktay
PHOTO: IAON
nly one thing is really clear about the Obama health care plan, which was just upheld by a majority on the Supreme Court that included conservative Chief Justice John Roberts: If it is going to be any better than what we already have, well have to continue to fight for at least a single-payer system that covers everyone in this sick society. And single-payer, while popular with progressives, still falls far short of socialized medicine in socialist countries like Cuba, where major government resources are committed to promoting the health of the population and no one has to worry about how to pay for care. Criticism and support of the Obama plan come from both left and right. What was just upheld by the court was the mandate that everyone get health insurance or pay a penalty tax. This made the insurance companies and other health-related industries happy, of course, because it means theyll be sure to make more money. Left critics of the plan say that many among the tens of millions of uninsured dont have coverage because they just cant afford it. They will wind up having to pay the fine, which they surely cant afford either in these days of high unemployment and low wages. Supporters of the plan say this provision was essential that without it the whole plan would have died, allowing insurance companies to continue rejecting people for pre-existing conditions. They also say that people who cant afford the premiums will get assistance. However, this ruling allows states to opt out of expanding Medicaid to more poor people, which the original law had mandated, even though the federal government would pay for most of it. Right-wing governors in Florida and South Carolina
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as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Professor Busra Ersanli is the best known of those who were thus imprisoned in 2011, together with the publisher Ragip Zarakolu, who has since been released. We now wish to focus public attention on Aye Berktay (Hacimirzaoglu), a respected translator, researcher and global peace and justice activist. Since her arrest in October 2011 during the KCK operations, she has been held in pre-trial detention in Bakirkoy Womens Prison in Istanbul. Nine months after her initial incarceration, Aye Berktays trial, along with others, is scheduled to run from July 2 to July 13 in Silivri, near Istanbul. As participants in the former World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) network, we have now formed an international delegation to observe the trial of Aye Berktay. She helped found the World Tribunal on Iraq in 2003, and was a principal organizer of its culminating session in Istanbul. We know Aye Berktay to be a person of great integrity and honesty. She is not a terrorist, but an idealist who is committed to peace and democracy. We will return to Istanbul to register our solidarity with Aye Berktay and others who have been targeted as alleged terrorists for democratically challenging the Turkish states violent handling of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. We recognize that the KCK operations are used to spread fear among activists, silence public dissent, and normalize the arbitrary arrest of citizens. We urge the Turkish government to stop suppressing democratic efforts in support of rights demanded by Kurdish citizens in Turkey. We urge the Turkish government to stop criminalizing activism under the guise of counter-terrorism. We demand the immediate release of Aye Berktay and all political prisoners in Turkey! The delegation includes Italian attorney Fabio Marcelli, International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Spanish attorney Maria Louisa Martin Abia, IADL member; Lieven De Cauter, professor at Leuven University, Belgium, president of the BRussells Tribunal, co-founder of the WTI; Tony Simpson, director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation; Paloma Valverde, coordinator of the Spanish antiwar organization CEOSI; Pedro Rojo, coordinator of CEOSI; Aya ubuku, assistant professor in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science; and Patrick Deboosere, co-founder of the BRussells Tribunal and the WTI. See the petition at ipetitions.com/ petition/detentionsinturkey. See Ayse Berktays letter from prison at tinyurl. com/72r5lq6.
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Rene Gonzlez Sehwerert, released from prison on Oct. 7, is still being forced to remain in the U.S. against his will.
essence, their offense was to be unregistered foreign agents, a relatively minor charge which is often resolved by sending the offenders back to their homeland. Not in the case of the Cuban 5, though. Gerardo Hernndez, for example, is sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years. But a persistent and growing global movement is demanding that all the Cuban 5 be released and returned to Cuba. Now, even after his release from prison last Oct. 7, Gonzlez remains in a form of isolation one his attorney says is contrary to the reintegration purpose of supervised release. First and foremost, he is isolated from the community he intends to reintegrate into his home in Cuba. Cuba is where his spouse Olga, his daughters Irma and Yvette, and his parents live. Gonzlez did get the courts permission to briefly visit Cuba in April to say goodbye
Gerardo Hernndez Nordelo, Ramn Labaino Salazar, Antonio Guerrero Rodrguez and Fernando Gonzlez Llort.
to his dying brother, Roberto. He then returned to the U.S. Gonzlez was born in the United States and holds both Cuban and U.S. citizenship. Nonetheless, he is isolated in the U.S., where he remains undocumented. To get a valid drivers license in Florida, Gonzlez would be required to make the address of his residence a matter of public record. Because of the violent anti-Cuba groups there, this would be a risk to his safety. The brief points out an obvious fact that should be apparent to the court. As a convicted agent of the Cuban government, Defendant is reviled by a significant number of people who harbor anti-Cuba and anti-Castro views, some of whom have advocated violence. Therefore, Defendant has found it necessary to take strong measures to ensure that his identity and location remain a secret from those who would do him harm. A trained pilot, Gonzlez also cant renew his pilots license without making his address known. He cannot get credit or enroll in school or participate in anything that requires him to divulge his identity and residence. Gonzlez has offered to renounce his U.S. citizenship when he is allowed to return to Cuba, so as to provide to the Court and to the Government the concrete assurance that he does not intend to return for any suspect purpose whatsoever. It is ironic that the U.S. government, which has expeditiously removed more than 280,000 immigrants from the U.S. thus far in 2012 and returned them to their country of origin against their will, has forced a Cuban who is a hero to his people to remain in Florida against his wishes.
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