International Newsletter
No. 5
December 23rd, 2002
Weekly information dossier published by the
International Liaison Committee -ILC,
Please contact :
International Liaison Committee -ILC, c/o Parti des travailleurs - 87,
rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis,
7510 Paris France
phon : (33 1) 48 01 88 28 fax : (33 1) 48 01 88 36
e-mai l - eit.ilc@wanadoo.fr
*****
Table of Contents:
Presentation
They say it themselves: This is a war for oil!
Italy: Free Tribune on Florence Social Forum
Germany: The editorial board of the newspaper Sopode emits this
declaration
Mexico: Letter Presented for the Consideration of the Participants of
the IV Convention Against the FTAA and For Labor rights for All
Algeria: Press review on the labor mobilizations
ILC publications and calendar
*****
Presentation
In the previous issue of the ILC International Newsletter (No. 4,
December 9, 2002), we launched a call to our correspondents in the ILC
asking them to send us their positions, their analysis and any published
documents related to their interventions.
This call was heeded. Thus, this week we are publishing new
contributions coming from the following countries or correspondents:
- Algeria: The Labor mobilizations have begun
- Germany: Where are they dragging our country?
- Mexico: Convention against the FTAA and For Labor Rights for All
- Italy: Open tribunal on the Social Forum in Florence.
Each week, in the face of the silence and the cascades of lies from the
major international press - remember, on the eve of Bush's dirty
petroleum war against the Iraqi people, the role played by the CNN
network during the Gulf war - ILC International Newsletter proposes to
deliver to its readers and to the correspondents of the International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, as much information as
possible from the organizations that are part of the ILC, and
information which cannot be found in any other place.
We hope that this information can be useful for your own interventions.
In exchange, we urge you to continue writing to us, to send us your own
contributions, positions and appeals.
You need the ILC Newsletter, and it needs you.
So subscribe to us and understand what is going on around you with this
newsletter.
*****
They say it themselves: This is a war for oil!
We are publishing here in these pages various articles from the
international press that make reference to the preparations for war and
its true objective: the confiscation of Iraqi oil by the United States
and its hopes of thusly controlling the Gulf zone. You can measure the
extent of the submission of the other governments (Great Britain, France,
Germany) and the role of the UN in this new war against the people.
October 16, Washington-France Press Agency (AFP):
While the United States prepares for a war in Iraq, Congress
definitively approved on Wednesday a strong increase in the Defense
budget for 2003 ... The total of 335,199 million dollars ...represents
an increase of more than 12% or 37,000 million from 2002. It is also the
most important growth in the military budget since the beginning of the
80s, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan...
November 19, AFP (France):
"The tension between the United States and Iraq continues, on
Tuesday November 19th, the price of Brent oil in London, after an
increase of almost a dollar a barrel at the end of the session".
November 13, Les Echos (France):
During the two months that the negotiations on the UN resolution have
lasted..., not one chief of state, not one diplomat, has made reference
to the question of oil for fear of being accused of mercantilism".
"Nonetheless, without it, the interest would be very little. In the
short term, Iraq represents a key country for the energy supply
stability of the country...The second largest world reserve after Saudi
Arabia (260,000 million barrels of reserve), Iraq possesses 112,000
million barrels of oil".
Washington Post, (USA) James Woolsey
"To get rid of Saddam Hussein, to rapidly get Iraqi oil production
afloat, to counter Saudi Arabia, considered not very trustworthy by the
American hawks, at the bottom of things thinking always of the stock
exchange to re-launch the economy..."
"the prices of crude oil are going down" (that is - Editor's
Note - "the immediate consequence of the acceptance by Saddam
Hussein of the UN resolution on disarmament...The broadness of the dip
in the prices of crude translated the feelings of the market, for which
the Iraqi decision delays the risk of a war of decay for weeks at least.
According to some, the war continues to be inevitable."
The Guardian of London (Great Britain):
"Even while the UN inspectors pack their bags for the difficult
trip to Iraq before the end of this month, the Pentagon continues to
consolidate its forces in the region and, according to military experts,
would be ready to go into action in the coming months...
Great Britain, for its part, has announced the mobilization of thousands
of soldiers and has called up reservists....
Patrick Garrett, a military expert who works for a research organization
in Washington, declared: "If you really need more proof that an
invasion is being prepared, a team that allows for river crossing is
needed, since they would have to cross the Tigris and the Euphrates".
He added: "This team is now on its way."
The general quarters of the main units that would intervene in a war
have been moved from their base in the United States and in Germany, to
Kuwait. In Oman, heavy B1 bombers have been seen and there are
preparations in process for rolling out the B-2 "stealth"
bombers, which would be the first to be called into action.
The number of planes from the Royal Air Force in the region has tripled
and some senior British officials have already joined their colleagues
in Qatar.
The chief economist of Merrill Lynch in New York:
According to the OECD, "the world economy is heading towards a
period of calm, but not before the middle of 2003 at least"--
"When an eventual conflict with Iraq will have ended".
"The only solution to re-launch the economy is war." Francis
Mer (Economic Minister-France)
Read in "Le Journal du dimanche" (France) November 24:
"Gary observes the wide metal box between his feet. It is 4 in the
morning, Washing time, on this September 26th of 2001. The CIA agent is
sitting in the back of a MI 17 helicopter, of Russian fabrication...Inside
the box, carefully piled, are stacks of 100 dollar bills, impossible to
separate. Three million dollars...
Gary is nothing more than one of the figures distributing money in
Afghanistan. His objective? To buy the leaders of the Northern Alliance
in the war, but also thousands of Taliban... In his first meeting with
Muhammed Arif Sawari, the chief of information services for the Northern
Alliance, Gary began the conversation by putting 500,000 dollars on the
table. The next day, in front of the general Mohamed Fahim and the
doctor Abdullah Abdullah, he added a million dollars more....
In the end, the United States needed 110 CIA agents, 316 special forces
agents, implacable air support and a few boxes of money in cash to get
rid of the Taliban...
In the corridors of the White House, some considered that the same
tactic could be used with success in Iraq.."
November 29, New York Times (USA):
"The inspections have started again... The two in charge, Hans Blix
and Mohammed L. Baradei, have adopted a conveniently aggressive tone.
The Iraqi declarations, nevertheless, continue to be evasive and
upsetting, including the insolent declaration that Baghdad does not
produce unconventional weapons. A critical time will be December 8th,
when Baghdad has to declare all of its biological, chemical and nuclear
activities. If this report is not more honest than the last Iraqi
declarations, military action is inevitable."
Paris, November 30 , AFP (France):
The French Minister of Defense, Alliot-Marie, assures that "France
has the means to confront any situation that implies ground, naval or
aerial intervention... As a permanent member of the Security Council, we
will assume its responsibilities".
Michele Alliot-Marie defended, throughout an interview with the German
weekly Der Spiegel, "the idea of excluding defense spending from
the calculations of public deficits, in order to free them up from the
budgetary restrictions of Maastricht and the stability pact.
November 21, AFP (France):
The final declaration of the European summit broadened to seven
countries of Eastern Europe indicates: "We have given instructions
for the elaboration of a global concept for the employment of this
force, which would reach its initial operative capacity as soon as
possible, but at the latest in October of 2004, and its final operative
capacity at the end of October of 2006 at the latest."
December 1, AFP (France):
Doha: The American army has installed a high-tech operations center in
Qatar, where there are the means to equip an entire brigade, a signal of
Washington's intention to continue preparing for an eventual war in
Iraq. ...
Around 60,000 American military have been transferred to the Gulf
region, near Iraq, according to military sources. More than 4,000 are
stationed at the air base of Al-Udeid, in Qatar, which is also the
largest depository of American military material in the region.
According to the New York Times, the United States has spend more than
100 million dollars to build 20 acclimatized depositories in As-Sayliyah
for hundreds of combat and armed vehicles, sufficient in number to equip
an entire brigade.
December 2, Washington Post (USA):
"As difficult as it is to predict how much the Americans will pay
for a new war, one fact appears indisputable: it will be many times the
amount paid by contributors in 1991", declared the Washington Post.
"According to informal estimations from several teams in Congress
and from research institutes in Washington, the cost of an invasion and
occupations of Iraq has been established to be within 100,000 and
200,000 million dollars."
"The American president, George W. Bush, has limited the salary
increases of 2.7 million civil employees of the federal government to
3.1% starting in January and has suspended the differentiated increases
for those who have the right to it because of the city or region in
which they work. The authorization for the wage revision is one point
below the increase of 4.1% given to the 1.3 million (professional)
soldiers in the country."
"In a situation of national urgency since September 11 of 2001, it
would interfere with the capacity of the country to advance in the war
against terrorism".
December 2, International Herald Tribune (USA):
"Flash-to-bang time"
With the war in Iraq nearing, this term has acquired a broader
significance-in the industry of war, as well as in the supply of
soldiers. Everyone wants the flash-to-bang time to be shorter-from the
moment at which an objective is decided and that in which it is
destroyed, from the moment in which marching orders are given and when
the troops arrive in place, from the date of an invention to the
production of it.
Thus, in the hills of Maryland, a General Dinamics Co. robotics
laboratory produces small, un-piloted armored vehicles, which can move
over a targeted terrain at 30 km/hour...General Dinamics assures that
the fire power of its products will be equal to that of a whole
battalion with only one third of the forces: 270 soldiers supported by
140 robots.
The same acceleration is occurring in the entire military industry. The
average time between the location of a target and the hit went from 45
minutes in the Gulf War to 15 minutes in Afghanistan. In Boeing,
thousands of accessories are produced monthly to transform
"ordinary" bombs into "smart" bombs, of the kind
that were used commonly in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has promised that,
if there is a war in Iraq, this type of bomb would be massively
deployed.
In order for a satellite to direct a bomb to its objective, it must be
able to use data that it can communicate to the soldiers and pilots.
Boeing and Lockheed, in the face of increasing demand for satellites,
are impatiently awaiting the order to create a new generation of
satellites, for the first time using lasers to communicate in space.
"The costs for research, development and purchasing of armaments
will increase by 8% to 10% each year in the coming year", stated an
expert.
December 2, International Herald Tribune (USA):
"Washington, December 2, AFP-American president George W. Bush
stated on Monday that the signals given up to now by Iraq on its
willingness to disarm were not encouraging and reminded people that the
United States was ready to lead a military coalition against Saddam
Hussein. During a speech in Denver, Dick Cheney stated with regard to
Saddam Hussein that "his regime has had high level contacts in the
past years with Al Qaida and has helped with the training of Al Qaida
terrorists". "For this reason the war against terrorism will
not be won until Iraq has, completely and verifiably, been deprived of
all of its weapons of mass destruction", declared Cheney.
This new verbal offensive by the American leaders against Baghdad takes
place as the deadline of December 8th nears. From now until Sunday, Iraq
must provide a complete list of its development programs for arms of
mass destruction and ballistic missiles. Ari Fleischer, president Bush's
spokesperson, has in any case not left much way out for Iraq: "If
Saddam Hussein indicates that there are arms of mass destruction, in
violation of the resolutions of the United Nations, we will know that he
has once again tricked the world. If he says he does not have them, then
we will see if he is saying something that we thought he would be able
to deny".
December 1, (AFP France):
Macdill Air force Base (United States)
"airplanes from the allied coalition" (United States and Great
Britain) have bombed an anti-air defense station in the south of IraqŠThese
bombings, which occurred at around 8:30 am GMT, with the help of guided
precision bombs, took place over "installations situated between
Tallil, 270 km southeast of Baghdad, and Basora, 385 km from the
capital".
In Baghdad, some inhabitants, contacted by telephone, indicated that at
least 4 Iraqis had died and 20 been injured as a result of a bombing by
western planes over the offices of a state petroleum company in Basora,
the southern capital of Iraq. Two missiles had impacted with a building
of the Southern Oil Company at 11am local time, (8am GMT), added those
inhabitants."
Baghdad, AFP (France), December 2:
The renewal of the "food for oil" program, which continues to
be blocked by demand from the United States, should be brought back
under a provisionary title for one more week.
New York Times (USA) December 8:
"The preparations are almost finished".
New York Times (USA):
"Very soon there will be enough tanks, war buildings, planes, bombs
and troops in the Gulf to be able to launch an attack against Iraq in
January".
AFP (France) December 9
"Obviously irritated, the heads of the organizations charged with
the UN inspections demanded with insistence these past days that the
United States help them unmask the possible programs of mass destruction
in Iraq. Washington, which employs the threat of military action,
repeats its conviction that Iraq continues to hide nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons programs, but has refused to provide proof of
this."
La Repubblica (Italy):
"We think of these pages like the end of a pendulum. A large
pendulum of 12,000 pages and which weigh 58 kg, on the edge of which
swings the knot that has been made to hang Saddam Hussein in Bush's war.
The absolute power of the superpower continues to seek legal
justification, it must appear impeccable from the procedural point of
view. In a country in which the arm of a person who is receiving a
lethal injection is disinfected with care, proper judicial proceedings,
internal and international, should be respected.
And in 12,000 pages of any document, including one compiled by the most
honest of notaries and the most sincere of politicians, unavoidably
there are omissions, errors and ambiguities; the "puritans"
will be satisfied to discover that the accused is guilty of something.
And this execution will take place, with meticulous respect for
procedures, with the cotton soaked in rubbing alcohol to disinfect the
dead."
AFP (France):
"The American companies have been contacted by the American
officials, it is not a secret that they have asked them to participate
immediately (after the war) in the reconstruction of the Iraqi petroleum
system", according to M. Ibrahim.
"And the answer of the companies has been: not so soon, firstly
because it is not so clear that the situation will be stable and,
secondly, how would we justify to the stock holders, such as, for
example P-DG of Exxon, immediate costs of five or six thousand million
dollars in a country like Iraq? "And this when it doesn't cost more
than a dollar or a dollar and a half to extract a barrel of oil from
this region, compared to 12 dollars a barrel in North America or 8
dollars in South America."
*****
Italy
Free Tribune on Florence Social Forum
You will find here some excerpts from a document of Fourth International
(one of the tendencies of the International Liaison Committee)
We have published several articles and texts about the 2nd Porto Alegre
World Social Forum as well as a brochure on the Participatory Budget
since the Brazilian elections.
One of the Porto Alegre World Social Forum decisions was to organize
continental forums.
One of the first forums was the European Forum in Florence, held in
early November. We felt it useful to send comrades there to collect
information and texts. On November 9, hundreds of thousands demonstrated
against the war in the streets of Florence. We reported back on this. At
the end of the demonstration a call was launched from the platform for a
new " European demonstration on February 15 " and a
mobilization on the Saturday following the beginning of the Iraq war.
At the same time, dozens of workshops, conferences and seminars met with
the participation of NGOs, associations, trade union and political
organizations around the theme : " Another Europe is possible
".
3. The trade unions were practically excluded from the discussion. Not
that they were absent (it was the CGIL, majority union federation, and
the FIOM, CGIL metal-workers union - which actively participated in the
debates), but because they only represented one of a thousand components
of this Forum, along side the all so numerous NGOs and churches, ETUC
and international organizations.
AND the trade unions were present under the aegis of the ETUC whose
significance is its determined intention to be part and parcel of "
civil society " and become a major actor of " new governance
".
The ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) co-organizer of the
European Social Forum (ESF) and the leaders of main trade unions
federations like the French CGT favorably acknowledged the significant
presence of trade unions and the fruitful dialogue engaged with the
" social movements ", the " associative movements ",
the NGOs, etc.
The first result of these forums : the trade union becomes " one
" component which discusses, collaborates, gets lost among the
enormous chaos of opinions which, in the end, is called concertation.
Another aspect : during all the assemblies taking place throughout Italy
at the same time, were being raised the issues of trade union unity,
what should be done with the CISL and the IUL, plans for FIAT, etc. No
one raised these questions in Florence and the FIAT problem was only
treated from the standpoint of Communist Refoundation's plan for "
a " state intervention, while no one formulated the demand of a
halt to all layoffs.
4. In any case, the trade union discussions were situated on the ground
of Europe : how to build a European trade union ; how to correct the
Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted by the ETUC at the Nice Summit in
December 2000 (see the last issue of the Manifesto of the 500 for Trade
Union Independence whose extracts are published in International News);
how trade unions should participate in the discussion of the European
constitutional convention ; how to build European-wide contracts.
These elements came out clearly form the ESF proceedings. The existence
national contracts and national framework (and thus the trade unions and
the organized working class) were excluded from the Forum. The least
that can be said is that the operation's aim is to destroy the working
class which is historically organized within the national framework and
in national trade unions.
And so, and this was openly discussed, the trade unions formed within
the national framework and defending the rights won within the framework
of nations must be destroyed and this by integrating them into the ETUC.
Some noteworthy interventions were given in the Conference " Europe
at Work : between global production and social transformation. "
Introduction by Gianni Agostinelli (Alternative World Forum) : "
The stakes are no longer at the national but the continental level. Our
aim should be to preserve the Charter of Rights of the European
Convention (...). Those who are the most flexible, the most deregulated
and precarious should be given a voice ; it is necessary for them to
negotiate directly, for them to put forth their demands. "
Gérard Aschieri (General Secretary of the French FSU teachers' unions
federation, France) : " The points proposed by the FSU are :
Education is not a business and should be run by renovated and reformed
public services. It should train at once individuals, citizens and
workers. It should provide professional experience which result in
equivalent degrees for all but which must also take into account the
particular experiences of everyone as individuals. Life-long
education should become a right, be part of the work contract in the
form of comprehensive training ; not as a pretext for making workers
more flexible, but for allowing workers to become actors in
society. "
*****
Germany
The editorial board of the newspaper Sopode emits this declaration
Alert: Where are they leading our country?
It seems that the global crisis is concentrating its blows on Germany.
The country that is the industrial leader in the heart of Europe is now
the "sickling of Europe". The accusations rain down, as if
they came from the same source, about this "sickling",
launched by the Bush government, the IMF, the European Union, the
representatives of German capital and, logically, the CDU/CSU. (1)
But is it not perhaps the policies of these governments and institutions
that promote the massive destruction of productive jobs, too
"costly" in their eyes? Is it not by chance their policies
that favor the transference of capital from sectors of production to
those of speculation? Or perhaps is the refusal, legal and illegal, to
pay taxes not responsible for the dramatic ruin of public budgets, as it
is for the growing weight of the debt payment that enriches the banks?
All of those responsible for this catastrophic situation claim, in an
incendiary and ruthless campaign, the destruction of all of the
institutions of the social state and the ruin of the normal labor
relations protected by collective bargaining contracts. They direct
their poisoned darts against "trade union power" and demand
that it be destroyed. They brutally reject creating egalitarian living
conditions, that is to say, they reject social unity in Germany. They
see the east as an experimentation camp for the destruction of social
norms, workers rights, and collective bargaining contracts.
Nonetheless, the workers, unions and social democrats voted in the
majority against this policy. They blocked Stoiber, who supports this
policy, from the road to power.
The elected a SPD government to (2):
Protect jobs, defend the autonomy of the collective bargaining
negotiation and contracts;
Defend the social state and create social unity in Germany.
But now they are feeling a profound restlessness, worry and even fright
at the direction that the government is taking with its first measures.
How are the workers, unions and social democrats to understand that
Schroder's government is taking no measures to put an end to the
scandalous ruin of the public budgets caused by the redistribution made
at the benefit of the monopolies, banks and the wealthy?
How is it possible that this government would back down in the face of
the shouts of reaction from the bosses and the CDU/CSU to the timid
attempt of the government to correct a little of the tax reporting of
the companies and thus temper the terrible diminution of the
government's fiscal income? It would thus be impossible to surmount the
precarious situation of the Lander and the communes.
How is it possible that G. Schroder recants on his promise to
reintroduce the tax on fortunes and also rejects the union demand,
widely supported by the SPD, to impose a minimum tax on the capital
corporations, an effective tax on companies and an increase in the tax
on inheritance? How is it possible that the Shroder government, in
accepting the dictates of the UE, prescribes for the Lander and the
communes that they continue programming reductions and privatizations,
instead of taking real measures against fiscal injustice? Is this the
mandate for which he was elected?
How is it possible that Shroder said, in an interview with ZEIT, that it
is necessary to reduce the "claims" and that "if this is
not done voluntarily, the government needs to impose it". Schroder
wants to turn the government into an instrument of those responsible for
unemployment and the growing social misery and with it to harm the
unemployed?
Is it possible that Shroder intends to turn the government into an
instrument to mine the other pillar of the social state, unemployment
insurance? How is it possible that, under the pressure of the EU and the
employers associations, the right to unemployment insurance is being
repealed and it is announced in the Federal Employment Office that this
will save "almost 7 thousand million euros"?
In the electoral campaign, Schroder defended, against Stoiber, the
national collective bargaining contracts and the autonomy of collective
bargaining negotiations. How is it possible then that now, in the face
of the uncontrolled demagoguery of the bosses and the CDU/CSU, they
kneel down and use their power, in the framework of the Hartz plans, to
broaden employment that is temporary, badly paid, in trades that are
precarious and not truly independent, with the objective of mining the
national collective bargaining negotiations and normal contracts for
work covered by collective bargaining contracts?
Are perhaps the numerous union members and members of the AFA (2) not
correct when they view the destruction of unemployment insurances as
"the most serious attack on the rights of workers in post-war
Germany" (resolution from the regional conference of Verdi in South
Hesse)? And this goes on further. How is it possible that the Schroder
government supports the direct attacks against the major collective
bargaining contracts of the public sector, against the wage tabulation
for personnel in the public sector (BAT) and against the unified
compensation of state employees, by means of derogatory clauses and
through regionalization.
It is an attack against the fundamental social conquests of the labor
movement.
Schroder has radically turned his back on the equalization between the
East and the West, on the achievement of the constitutional mandate to
obtain unity in living conditions throughout Germany. Schroder call for
wage moderation and his warning against strikes in the present demands
conflict, have encountered resolute resistance from the workers. Did
they perhaps not tell the metallurgical workers that only the workers
satisfied with the wage increases are motivated to vote for the SPD?
(Klaus Zwickel).
How it is possible that G. Schroder sees in his first measures, the
departure point to apply other structural reforms "that will also
cause pain"? What does he mean when he says that the social state
is "available"? It means that he supports the plans of the
Rurup commission that are trying to repeal common shared retirement
insurance, financed totally by both employers and workers, as well as to
destroy the other pillar of the social state, the common shared health
system?
Might this not provoke the same great restlessness of last spring, that
is to say, that this policy would lead to the electoral defeat of the
SPD, on this occasion in Hesse and Lower Saxon? Before the elections, G.
Schroder gave an absolute no to the war against Iraq, nevertheless, he
is increasingly involving more German soldiers and arms in the war and
incessantly increases the expenses for the bellicose interventions, to
the point that money is being taken from the schools and the hospitals;
from the unemployed and the pensioners).
From our point of view, this situation is alarming. We can not permit
the situation to arrive at the point in which the Schroder government,
which was elected to "concern itself most energetically with the
interests of the workers" (Zwickel), leads Germany, under the
dictates of the international financial markets and German capital, to
the whirlwind of political and social decay.
We oppose the threat to the existence of our independent unions, on the
contrary, we want the SPD to continue to be allied with the unions.
It is necessary that the government led by the SPD act to defend the
interests of the workers who elected it and gave it a mandate to defend
jobs against the demands of the stock market and the earnings
expectations of the investors.
The Schroder government should act to defend the social welfare system,
the public social infrastructure, the public education system and the
public health system and to finance them sufficiently.
… For the defense normal labor contracts, covered by collective
bargaining contracts and national collective bargaining contracts.
Action should be taken to achieve equality between the East and the
West, and to achieve social unity in Germany.
… For social justice, democracy and peace.
No one can deny that this is the government that the workers and the
majority of the population want, a government that defends their rights
and satisfies their demands, a government that practices social democrat
policies.
Gerhard Schroder declared that he wants to do whatever is necessary.
This is fair, what is necessary must be done: that is the satisfaction
of the mandate that the workers and the majority of the population gave
to the government.
This demands respect for democracy. We, in Germany, know what democracy
means.
(1) CDU/CSU: German bourgeois party
(2) AFA: Workers commission of the Social Democrat Party (PSD)
(*) Sopode: newspaper of union activists and social democrats
*****
Mexico:
Letter Presented for the Consideration of the Participants of the IV
Convention Against the FTAA and For Labor rights for All
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, November 16, 2002
We are preparing the Continental Conference of Workers Against the FTAA!
On October 27th the Brazilian people declared: We want to be free to
decide our destiny!
We, Mexican workers and youth, gathered at the IX Convention of Workers
Against the FTAA and for Labor Rights for All, in the city of Oaxaca,
have received a letter of invitation from a member of the Executive
Committee of the Unified Workers Federation (CUT) of Brazil, in the name
of various Brazilian union leaders, to hold the Continental Conference
of Workers Against the FTAA this coming June of 2003 in the
"ABC" region of São Paulo, the birth place of the independent
organization of the working class of Brazil.
As have all the workers of the American continent, we felt a great
enthusiasm when on the 27th of October, 52 million Brazilians voted for
the Workers Party, a party which surged from the great strikes held in
the ABC region 23 years ago. With this election they expressed their
rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and expressed
with force: the working people of Brazil want to live and decide freely
their own fate! At the same time, they showed the people of the
continent that it is possible to resist and to fight against the plans
of imperialism.
Yes, the FTAA is a "free trace agreement" that Bush wants to
impose against the sovereignty and unity of the nations; against the
rights of the working class and the existence of its
organizations. The FTAA is the particular form that it takes in the
American continent, the "long term" war announced by Bush
against the workers and peoples and whose most brutal form at this time
are the bellicose preparations against the Iraqi people in order to take
control of their petroleum.
No, the FTAA is not an alliance for the people and by the people of the
continent:
The governments say that the FTAA will develop trade, create jobs. We,
the workers and youth of Mexico, in the same way as our brothers and
sisters from the United States and Canada, have been the first to suffer
from this experience with nine years of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). The Salinas de Gortari government promised when it
signed NAFTA promised that the country was on its way to the "first
world". The results are clear:
In those nine years, wages have fallen by a significant
percentage. In the country we have witnessed a genuine disaster. We have
lost self-sufficiency in our consumption crops. Traditional crops like
rice and corn have been condemned to disappearance in the face of
importation of US grains. Millions of peasants and workers are obliged
to migrate clandestinely to the United States in search of work. The
passage across the border costs hundreds of lives each year, workers
drowned in the Rio Bravo, hunted like rabbits by right wing North
American groups, beaten by "la migra". In spite of all this,
thousands of them achieve their objective, but in the United States are
condemned to be "second class workers", without rights and
with the lowest salaries.
In the country, on the industrial plane, only the maquiladoras have
grown (1.5 million workers), nonetheless, today they seek to migrate to
countries like China where the wages are even lower, as a form of
pressure to destroy labor rights in our country. In these centers of
exploitation of women and youth, the Federal Labor Law is not enforced,
and the unions are company unions, controlled directly by the bosses.
The work days are twelve hours long. All in all, they do not benefit the
country.
Nine years of NAFTA has also meant privatization upon privatization. The
disappearance of the passenger railroad system (leaving rural dwellers
isolated) and the delivery of the railroad freight system into the hands
of multinationals like Union Pacific, has turned the country back a
hundred years in this terrain, to the period before the revolution. The
bankers and politicians filling their pockets with money through
speculation and fraud, have led the national bank to bankruptcy and to
its sale to banks from the US (Citibank), Spain (BBV, Santander) and
Canada (Nova Scotia), leading it also a hundred years back in time.
In these nine years the public debt has exceeded all records. The growth
of the foreign debt has added to the explosion of the internal debt as a
product of the "bailout" of the banks, highway construction
companies, etc.
Nine years of NAFTA have been nine years of plunder, of the delivery of
the resources and wealth of the Mexican nation, of the destruction of
its sovereignty.
For Bush and the multinational companies the previous is not enough. Now
they want to broaden NAFTA to all of the countries of the Americas and
the Caribbean with the FTAA. Now they want to take the policies of NAFTA
to their most extreme consequences, to dismantle the nations and the
continent, to divide them into "useful" or
"non-useful" territories for the appropriation of profit,
taking control of the former and leaving the latter to its own luck.
This is the FTAA.
In Mexico they are delineating the contours of what would be the FTAA if
they are able to apply it. The Plan Puebla Panama, which isn't a plan
but a general orientation for the delivery of South East Mexico and
Central America, want to indicate: the pillage of petroleum, uranium,
water resources, bio-diversity by the petroleum companies,
pharmaceuticals, electricity.
They want to indicate as well a "second generation"
maquiladora, but in cheaper conditions than the previous, because today
the "competition" among capitalist governments to offer the
lowest wages, the most protection for the multinationals, today confront
the competition of the low wages of hundreds of thousands of Chinese
workers.
President Fox is preparing for the FTAA with a labor counter-reform that
implies the destruction of the right to collective bargaining contracts
and the establishment of individual contracting, unpaid work by
students, the total deregulation of the labor force. It would convert
all of Mexico into sweatshop labor.
Fox is proposing the attack of the base of the conquests that are left
from the Mexican revolution, destroying the social articles of the
Mexican constitution, in order to open the door to the privatization of
the electrical industry, of petroleum.... Fox is proposing the
dismantling of the ISSSTE, the IMSS and the Secretary of Health, in
order to give an in to the insurance companies and the foreign hospital
chains, all in the name that the social security institutions are in
bankruptcy, because the public funds are going overseas to pay the
foreign debt, a debt which does not belong to the people.
The FTAA is being prepared with the intention to turn education into one
more commodity. The national educational system is in grave danger. Fox
intends to impose what he calls the "Social Commitment to
Education" and the evaluation of this system on the part of
businesses and churches, threatening the existence of national labor
rights and of one union with national reach. The government intends to
"decentralize", divide and fragment the national system on all
of its levels. We are certain that it is still possible to change the
course of things, to stop the FTAA, to obligate its promoters to step
back. The elections of October 27th in Brazil were a demonstration. The
Brazilian people have put themselves in motion because they want to live
and decide their own destiny freely, to maintain their rights and
conquests, to live in peace. In 23 years of struggle they have built an
independent federation of workers (the CUT) and independent workers
party, upon which the workers supported themselves in opening a path for
all of the peoples of the continent.
Yes, the peoples of all of America, in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia,
Venezuela have mobilized themselves in these months, against all the
plans of looting and conquering that the IMF and imperialism try to
impose. The peoples and the workers seek the way.
In Mexico, last September 27, 30 thousand electricians, accompanied by
other groups, to the shout of "the country is not for sale!",
expressed the feeling of hundreds of thousands of workers: Enough of
privatizations and destruction of our rights! No to the destruction of
the nation! Enough of giving up our natural resources!
It is for all of the above reasons that the workers present in this IX
Convention, conscious of the necessity to defend the conquests of the
nation and the rights of the working class, decided to sign our names to
the invitation to hold the Continental Conference against the FTAA, to
organize its preparation in Mexico and, to the extent possible, in
Central America.
The preparation of the Conference against the FTAA expresses at the same
time the continuity of a series of activities that we have been
preparing: the Tri-national conference against the FTAA in May of 2001,
in Mexico city, participation in the popular national referendum on the
FTAA, and the signature campaign for endorsement of the open letter to
Fox, which demands his withdrawal from the negotiations of the FTAA
because he does not have the mandate of the population to participate in
them.
Yes, brothers and sisters, today we can say that the 27th of October,
for Mexico and all of the Americas, opened to a path for the defense of
our nations and our rights.
Yes, the fight against the policies of destruction of the multinationals
and the Bush government demands the free and brotherly unity of the
peoples and workers of the entire continent.
"The country is not for sale!"
Oaxaca, Oax., November 16, 2002
*****
Algeria:
Press review on the labor mobilizations
Emitted by our correspondent in the Workers Party of Algeria
"There was a multitude, yesterday, in the House of the People,
headquarters of the UGTA, in Algiers", relates L'Expression of
December 2 of 2002. "The unionists arrived in great numbers" (Š).
On the walls of the main room, banners were unfolded on which was
written in red: "Sonatrach (national hydrocarbon Company) and its
group of companies, instruments of the national sovereignty".
In this way, the UGTA, yesterday the protagonist of the
nationalizations, now rises as opposed to the threats that hang over
article 17 of the Constitution, which stipulates that the mining wealth
of the country is the exclusive property of the state and the people.
"We are opposed to a law imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. No
to the sacking of Sonatrach and no to the country being brought to its
knees". Thus they sound the warning bells of the union; there is no
doubt that they run the risk of that sound becoming deafening.
The Nouvelle Republique on the same day indicated that "the UGTA
declined to participate in the Khelil commission (the minister that is
preparing the privatization of the hydrocarbons, NDLR) in order to make
the law, and whose studies are supported by functionaries of the World
Bank".
In the hydrocarbon companies, mobilization against the plans for
privatization is developing.
All of the unions have demonstrated against privatization.
The unions have met massively in the assembly of the national federation
of petroleum, gas and chemical workers.
"Badredin (Secretary General of the Federation) asked the unionists
present: are you ready for a general strike? The unionists of Sonatrach,
Naftal and Sonelgaz, to mention only a few, unsurprisingly responded
unanimously: yes to the strike, no to the looting of the companies that
feed millions of Algerians" (Quotidien d'Oran, December 2).
At the same time, the workers of Ferphos (iron and phosphate, recently
privatized) "threatened to start a strike on December 8th if
leadership did not respond to their requests" which consist of wage
increases and the demand that those who control the company now fulfill
the promise to make investments. The secretary of the union of the
Skikda factory "I will return to the modification made to the
constitution in order to plunder the national resources. The law, which
anticipates the partial privatization of the subsoil, is
unconstitutional given that fundamental law requires that the state
cannot be separated from the subsoil resources" (Le Matin, December
2).
On the other hand, the government just decided on the dissolving of
EPEAL, as well as that of eight other companies which distribute water.
The workers of EPEAL called for a strike: "The new restructuring
seeks only to privatize the sector and nothing more" (L'Expression,
December 2).
"The Workers Party (which participates in the proposals of the
International Liaison Committee of Workers and People, NDLR), expressed
its unconditional support for the demands of the workers in the various
sectors of activities who are obligated to turn to strikes in order to
defend their jobs, their companies and to maintain their rights and to
struggle for dignified living and working conditions", emphasized
L'Authentique on December 3.
In the understanding of the Workers Party, it is necessary to
"reestablish peace and preserve the nation".
El Watan on December 2nd added that "the Workers Party expressed
that privatization and the break up of the state from its mission, are
factors that lead to the "dislocation of the national framework,
already affected by the political crisis, and to decomposition and
social regression".
*****
ILC International Calendar:
February, 2003: International Railroad Workers Conference Against
Railway Privatization (Paris-France).
March 8, 2003: International Women's Day Against the War and Defense
May, 2003: Western Hemisphere Conference Against the FTAA (Sao Paulo -
Brazil).
June, 2003: International Trade Union Conference In Defense of the
Conventions of the ILO.
June, 2003: International Conference In Defense of Public Education.
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