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A dossier of weekly information published by the ----- Introduction: Chile: "The copper mineworkers for the Codelco company, the world's main producer, have been on strike for a month in Chile. This is an unprecedented movement in which more than 28,000 sub-contracted workers are participating, out of the 30,300 that comprise the enterprise. The negotiations are at an impasse. The workers, organized into the Confederation of Copper Workers (CTC) have presented a series of demands, affecting wages, working conditions, housing, health care, education for their children and the implementation of the January 14 law on sub-contracting." You will find below an interview with Luis Mesina, union leader in the banking sector in Chile, concerning this strike and the context of Chile today, a country governed for 17 years by governments of "national cooperation." Conference in Serbia: On October 27-28, 2007, a Conference of Labor Activists of the Countries of the Ex-USSR, Eastern Europe and the Balkans will take place. We are publishing the letter of invitation written by our brother Pavlusko Imsirovic: "We, activists of the Workers Politics Alliance, affiliated to the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, would like to open a free discussion between us, around two major questions in our eyes: - Against all privatizations, for the defense and reconquest of the social conquests, public enterprises, and state property; thus, the rejection of the policies of privatization/destruction dictated by the imperialist international institutions: IMF, World Bank, European Union; - For the free union of nations and people, the constitution of a Free Federation of Peoples of Yugoslavia and the Balkans-Danubian region; the constitution of a Free Union of Peoples of Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR, against "balkanization," for the dismantling of the military bases." Ivory Coast: We are publishing an interview with a trade union leader concerning the "peace agreement" signed in Ougadougou. International Tribunal on Katrina: The Tribunal will take place from August 29 to September 2. "56,000 survivors of the Hurricane (August 2005) are being housed in highly toxic trailers." Subscribe and distribute the ILC International Newsletter! Support the ILC! ----- Table of Contents p.1: Presentation ------ Contact: Informations internationales ***********************
Strike in the copper mines The copper mineworkers for the Codelco company, the world's main producer, have been on strike for a month in Chile. This is an unprecedented movement in which more than 28,000 sub-contracted workers are participating, out of the 30,300 that comprise the enterprise. The negotiations are at an impasse. The workers, organized into the Confederation of Copper Workers (CTC) have presented a series of demands, affecting wages, working conditions, housing, health care, education for their children and the implementation of the January 14 law on sub-contracting. The 28,000 subcontracted mineworkers of Codelco have been on strike for more than a month in the fight for their demands: a rise in wages (which in general are three times less than the wage guaranteed by the labor contract of the enterprise and improved housing, health, education, and working conditions. At the same time, in the north of Chile, 700 employees of the Collahuasi mine are also on strike. The management of the mine, headed by a Anglo-Swiss corporation and a South African-Anglo American corporation refuses any negotiations on wages. The mineworkers have shut down production. They are demanding a 8% wage increase, but the management only proposes them half of this. All this is taking place while the huge companies in Chile and in other countries that exploit copper are making huge financial profits: "The red metal flames through the world markets," notes the media. One week ago, the prices of copper reached their highest point - 8,015 dollars a ton, a 27% rise since the beginning of the year. These super profits do not fall from the sky. They are this "super" because labor costs have literally been crushed. The capitalist's profits come at the expense of the workers. For the capitalists, the recipe (like everywhere) is the destruction of collective rights and codes. To this end, "sub-contracting" is an important instrument. Two-thirds of the workers in Codelco in Chile are sub-contracted. Guillermo Jimenez, who is 40 years old, is in charge of the maintenance of the machines in El Teniente, the biggest underground copper mine in the world, located in the south of Santiago. "For three years I have been a worker for CMS, a company that sub-contracts for Codelco," he explains. "However I know in other mine divisions, my job is a permanent, set job." He makes the equivalent of 380 Euros. The wage guaranteed by a set labor contract is about 1060 Euros. "And If I have a health problem, I cannot go to the Codelco hospital. I must pay." His children do not have rights to the purses of the company. Guillermo can no longer accept this situation. "Even our clothes do not provide the same security." Nevertheless, the sub-contracted workers often work at the most dangerous posts. "There have been 27 deaths in El Teniente since 2003. Of these, 25 were sub-contracted workers." Leonardo Gavieres, a 33 year-old, is a telecommunications workers at El Teniente. "I have been working at the same job (with the same office and even the same chair) for the past seven years, but in this time I have worked for three sub-contracting companies." He makes the equivalent of 675 euros. His colleagues with a full contract at Codelco make the equivalent of 675 Euros. The same job for three times less pay. Since January 14, a law has been on the books concerning sub-contracting, a law which demands that the bosses are supposed to employ all the sub-contracted workers who are in reality full time workers. "Thanks to this law," claimed the Socialist president Michelle Bachelet, "there will no longer be first and second class workers." These words remained unfilled. Nothing has been done to implement the law. It is significant, in this context, that the strike was declared in a public enterprise, whose president, José Pablo Arellano, was named directly by Michelle Bachelet and who has simply sat on the law. Through this strike, the sub-contracted and contracted workers of Codelco have decided themselves to have the law be respected and to conquer their demands. Against this strike, a draft agreement was developed, under the leadership of the Church, the leaders of the union (CTC) of the sub-contracted workers, and the management of the enterprise. This draft agreement has been met with strong opposition at the base and even in the leadership of the union. The La Nacion newspaper (July 31) reports that, "in Rancagua, the center of the negotiations, the ambiance this night was very tense, on the side of the police and on the side of the miners assembly, where great dissatisfaction prevailed." The president of the CTC was himself obliged to state, "the signing of an agreement in these conditions will not be easy." Luis Messina, a trade union leader in the Chilean banking sector, spoke of this strike, placing it in the context of Chile today, which has been led for the past 10 years of governments of "national conciliation" (the current government is headed by the Socialist Michelle Bachelet.) ----- Interview with Luis Messina, a banking sector trade union leader in Chile ILC: What in your opinion is the significance of this strike of 28,000 subcontracted and contracted workers of Codelco, which has been underway now for 36 days? Luis Messina: The national mobilization of contractual copper workers - employed by the biggest national enterprise of the country, Codelco - has put to the center several questions linked to the ownership of the country's most important economic riches, to the concrete situation of the contracted workers of Chile, to the attitude of the government, and to the current balance of forces, in a conflict which directly poses the question of the official governmental policy toward workers. The contracted workers of Codelco are the most numerous in this sector, more than 28,000. They are sub-contracted, that is, they work in private enterprises that then sell their labor to the national company. They do not have access to the benefits provided to their colleagues who work directly for the national company. Their jobs are more precarious and instable and they face harder working conditions. After several years of atomization, these contractual and sub-contracted workers came together into a confederation, the CTC, which united them together. The immediately presented their demands to the companies. The main demand was for the workers to be incorporated into the main company, due to the new law on sub-contracted contracts, which demands that the main company - in this case Codelco - integrate the workers who have a permanent job. ILC: What is the status of strike today? LM: At this very moment, the conflict continues. It is one of the biggest strikes in the private sector in many many years. It is necessary to note that it takes place at the same time as other strikes, for example the foreseen strike at the Itau bank. The strength of the mobilization immediately posed the question, which remains without a response, of who owns these national resources, the copper mines. A senator of the Christian Democracy, Jorge Lavandero, proposed a tax on the private copper companies in Chile, all in the hands of the multinationals, which export abroad most of the profits. But today, numerous sectors demand the renationalization of the copper mines, Chile's main economic resource, which were in the hands of the state when president Salvador Allende nationalized them in the 1970s. A group of MPs presented to Parliament a project in this direction. Currently, 70% of the copper production in Chile is in the hands of the big private companies, who look for immediate profits without thinking about the preservation of this resource for the future. This has been facilitated by the extremely high price of copper on the international markets, which will not last indefinitely. ILC: What is the attitude of the Bachelet government faced with this situation? LM: The government has acted in a delayed manner. It has not ordered Codelco to modify its attitude of rejection or resolve the conflict of the contractual workers. It has been put on the defensive in the face of the workers' struggle. La Moneda (1) did not expect this conflict to reach such proportions, at a moment where its popularity is at its lowest point. This government of "national cooperation" is infected with corruption at all levels. The mobilization has positively influenced the country and will mark Chilean history, which is often presented through the world as the advanced model of "neo-liberalism." It should be recalled that Chile continues to live in the framework imposed by the 17 years of military dictatorship, which completely uprooted the fundamental bases of the country, undermined the social gains won by the masses through long years of struggle. The bosses often say that Chile is an exception in Latin America. This is true in some ways. With the dictatorship of Pinochet, imperialism and the Chilean bourgeoisie obtained, well before the bourgeoisies of other countries in the continent, the economic, social, and political "counter-reforms" that radically transformed the whole economic and juridical order of the country. The privatizations, the electoral system, the precarity of health care systems, the central role of the armed forces, the economic rules, the submission of the legal branch, and many other aspects remain from the dictatorship and the successive governments have not wanted to eliminate these. The fact is that, essentially, today after 17 straight years of governments of National Cooperation (alliances between the Christian Democracy and the Socialist Party - ILC), all the counter-reforms of the dictatorship have been maintained and deepened. But this scheme, which has benefited the Chilean ruling class, is now seeing its first real conflicts, through a succession of social explosions, such as last year's national mobilization of high school students, the generalized revolt against the bad transportation system in Santiago and, now, the strike of the workers at Codelco. The bosses and the government have good reason to fear, in their words, that these protests are "contagious." ----- Endnotes (1) The Chilean presidential palace, the official residence of the President of the Republic **********************
Dear Friends and Comrades, I have been a Yugoslav labor activist for many years and I am the head of the Workers Politics Alliance in Serbia. I write you, activists of the countries of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the republics of the ex-USSR, who, like us, know the difficult situation we are living in. Against the permanent push to isolate our working classes from each other and from the rest of the world, our group is affiliated to the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, a framework of free discussion between labor activists of all tendencies on a world level. Tony BlairŠ Ten years at the service of the policies of Bush We just learned that the ex-prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair, was named by the "quartet" (United States, U.N., European Union, and Russia) to "reestablish peace in the Middle East." Blair is supposed to "establish peace"? But what has Blair done for ten years in Great Britain and what has he done in Iraq and Afghanistan? Isn't Tony Blair, who was rejected by millions of British workers in their mass demonstrations against the war and occupation in Iraq, responsible for doing Bush's dirty work and having bled the country and plunged its people into chaos? Blair not only waged war on the people of Iraq, side by side with Bush. He waged war on his own people. A militant of the British Labor Party told me recently at a conference of the ILC: "When I was a municipal councilor of the Labor Party, fro 1998 to 2004, I was responsible for health and social assistance. Thus I was up to date throughout this period on the situation of health services and I saw how the health budgets were being cut. I saw the number of beds reduced by 20%. In my town, 80% of the retirement homes were opened up to privatization." This man, who implements the policy of Bush, is supposed to "reestablish peace" in the Middle East? How is it possible to accept this? Do the people support the war in Iraq? No, not even in the United States; the American people have massively demonstrated their opposition to the war. Thus, how is the possible that the leaders and apparatuses of the big traditional parties, coming from the Socialist International and the Communist Parties, continue to accept the policies of Bush, which is none other than that of the dying regime of the private ownership of the means of production? We see where this is leadingŠ. ------ The situation in our countries of the Balkans, from Eastern Europe, and from the countries of the ex-USSR is part of the world situation. At the beginning of June 2007, the World Bank published a report complaining of a "lack of implementation of the reforms" in the countries of Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR. Commenting on this report, the French financial journal La Tribune writes: "The structural reforms and the privatization processes are delayed Š The welfare state - essentially subsidies to certain products - is costly."
Why does the World Bank complain about the "delays" in the privatization process? Let's look at two recent events that allow us to clarify the international situation and the developments in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the ex-USSR. Ex-Yugoslavia: The vast majority of workers remain against privatizations In a report written on the situation of the working class in Serbia, we wrote: "The vast majority of workers have been and remain against the privatizations. But the governments systematically destroy the enterprises, stop production, and provide the workers with a false alternative: either privatization or the liquidation of the enterprise. Š. Concerning the big centralized systems, like the energy sector, the post office, and the railroads, it is more difficult for the government to paralyze activities and pose the liquidation/privatization alternative and that is why, in these sectors, the resistance to the privatization is much stronger ŠIn the postal, energy, and railway unions, there are practically no forces that dare to openly support privatization. Š These unions are looking for points of leverage, solidarity, and collaboration with the workers' resistance to privatization in other trade unions." Balkans-Russia Summit in Zagreb: "Prevent the return to the old unity" of Yugoslavia In Zagreb (Croatia) a regional summit ended on June 24 concerning the energy question. Heads of state from all the Balkans (Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, etc.) and Putin were present. The meeting took place under the banner, "Energy is a commodity, but a specific one." Opening the conference, the Croatian president indicated: "It is necessary to consolidate the region, but a return to the past is impossible." What did he mean by "a return to the past"? Was he talking about the so-called ethnic wars, pushed by Bush Sr. from 1991 onwards, which ravages and destroyed the Balkans and the ex-Yugoslavia? (1) No. For the Croatian president, what is impossible is what he called a "return to the old unity," the return to federal Yugoslavia, with the conquests of 1946 and state property, particularly the property of the big means of production such as energy. It is striking that, faced against those who declare that "a return to the old unity is impossible," a union congress of energy workers in Serbia took place in December 2006 and formulated a proposal for common action of all the unions in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and the Balkans to demand that the governments and the European Union put a moratorium on the privatization of energy. This proposal was taken up by all the trade unions, but was rejected by each of the Mafioso governments of the Balkans. We know why. Immediately after the Croatian president, Putin (2) spoke to make the following declaration: "The Balkans are still more integrated into the European Union and we are ready to develop our relationship with your countries through the project of the European Union." In the common conclusion, the heads state underlined that the "strategic objective of all our countries is to enter into the European Union." The policies of the European Union and the public energy enterprises But what is the policy of the European Union concerning energy? The European directive 2003/55/CE, that is to say the text that imposed on each government in the member countries of the European Union, decrees that objective in each country is to "create competitive gas market" and the "liberalization of these sectors (gas and electricity) must be accelerated." What is the meaning of this? The destruction of state monopolies and nationalized energy sectors in each country. French comrades of the ILC informed me of the consequences in their country of the privatization of the EDF-GDF public enterprise: an increase, and in a brief period, of 35% of utilities for users, while the dividends pocketed by the stockholders and speculators increased by 62%.
The "integration into the European Union" defended by Putin means nothing other than the privatization/destruction of the public energy companies. In the countries where the state owned the means of production, as a first step toward socialism, it is necessary to align the prices to the prices of the world market. This is a policy that has already been implemented by the Bulgarian government, with disastrous consequences, as document by Bulgarian trade unionists demonstrates: - 30% of the workers of the electricity enterprise were laid off; But this phenomenon is valid in all domains. Who can deny, for example, that the privatization/destruction of the public health systems is a life or death question for millions of workers? Romania, Poland, RussiaŠ The right to health care is faced with the demands of the European Union and privatizations The media reported that on June 19, in Warsaw, 10,000 nurses and doctors demonstrated to demand better wages, all while the doctors' strike continues for more than a month in 280 of 600 hospitals. "We want to work and not immigrate," chanted the demonstrators. The Prime Minister, the ultra-reactionary Jaroslaw Kaczynski, qualified the demands of the doctors as "totally unrealistic," calling the demonstrations "political action in the work way possible, a shame for Poland." This individual, who some fraudulently present as an opponent of the European Union, declared a few days ago: "Obtaining high wages is completely unrealistic (because) this would undermine the whole project of public finances as well as our relationship with the European Union."
Isn't this policy of privatization of hospitals and social conquests (such as Law # 122 of Putin, in January 2006, which liquidated the "acquired advantages" and free medications for certain categories: pensioners, veterans, etc.) that is leading to the brutal fall in the average life expectancy (57 years for men) in Russia? Workers, on the basis of their own experiences, are led to make the following observation: there can be no survival in the framework of the policies of privatization/destruction dictated by the World Bank, IMF, European Union and relayed by the Mafioso governments. This all puts on the agenda, as one activist said at the trade union conference: "No to privatizations and yes to workers' control, as the only means to efficiently fight against corruption." This privatization policy accompanies a policy of U.S. military occupation and atomization into mini-states without sovereignty, controlled by American bases. What the Croatian president calls "the impossible return to the past, the impossible return to the old unity" is the return to the Yugoslav federation, towards a liberated Federation of the Balkans and the Danube, freed from the influence of the big powers and guaranteeing equal rights to all the nationalities. ----- A second recent event - talked about by the media throughout the world - confirms this observation. In the most secret way, the Duma authorized NATO troops to remain on the Russian territory As the last G8 Summit approached, the media multiplied their comments about the "resistance" of Putin vis a vis the American plan to decree so-called "independence" to Kosovo (a so-called "independence" under military occupation, because the territory of 10,800 square kilometers shelters Camp Bondsteel, the biggest U.S. military base outside the American territoryŠ a base which Putin has not demanded be shut down.) But did you know that a few days before the Duma (parliament) of Russia voted on May 25, 2007 as an "urgent procedure" to pass a law on the circulation and status of NATO troops on the territory of the Russian Federation? "The president of the Russian Federation and its councilors decided to present a new gift to their Euro-American colleagues. And what better than another step forward in NATO interference in Russia?" (Sovietskaïa Rossiïa, May 28, 2007) Let us repeat, this fact was hidden by all the press throughout the world. This law particularly foresees the Russian state paying 75% of the expenses stemming from having NATO troops on its soil. It also foresees that every NATO soldier that commits a crime in the Russian Federation will be tried by court in his or her home country, not by a Russian court. (4) This is law is essentially the same as that passed three years ago by the Serbian government. How are we to understand this? Isn't this a huge mystification? The very same Putin made a lot of noise at the G8 summit concerning his "opposition" to the installation of NATO radar and missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. The bases were rejected by the Polish and Czech peoples because these bases, in the words of the former director of the Diplomatic Academy of Poland, would only "reinforce the hegemonic position (of the Americans). This American umbrella will modify strategic positions and lead to a new arms race." (Le Figaro, June 8, 2007) To "oppose" bases in Central Europe, Putin immediately proposed to Bush the creation of the military bases in Azerbaijan, on the border with Iran. Bush precipitated this offer by proposing to Putin that Russian military forces participate in the anti-missile shield in Azerbaijan, while maintaining the bases in Poland and the Czech republic. Putin, the former colonel of the KGB, is the representative of the Mafioso clans that came out of the Stalinist bureaucracy which provoked the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. He continued Yeltsin's policies of the privatization/destruction of Soviet industry and agriculture, state property, and the conquests of the October Revolution of 1917. Putin named Tchoubaïs, the "father of the privatizations" that ravaged Russia in the first years of Yeltsin government, to head the commission for the full privatization of the public energy and electricity enterprises in Russia. Tchoubaïs faces resistance to the privatizations As in Serbia and the Balkans, Tchoubaïs is faced with the resistance of the workers, who reject privatization. This last month, a wave of strikes, particularly in the energy sector, shook Russia. One of many was the strike at the end of May of the workers of the Kourgantekhnergo factory, who demanded a 30 to 35% wage increase. Confronted with this resistance, Tchoubaïs, who was mandated to finish the privatization by February 2007, was constrained to demand 1.5 to 2 years in extra time to implement this policy of privatization-destruction, before finally being replaced. He is know supposed to head a governmental commission to privatize housing services (G.K.Kh.). The privatization of the electricity, housing, and heating, in an immense country like the Russian Federation where winter temperatures already provoke thousands of deaths from the cold each year, would mean a veritable genocide. But Putin has no other choice, because he submits to the dictates of Bush, as the vote in the Duma and his offer on the military bases demonstrates. Thus, for Putin, the only way forward to push through the privatizations and break the strikes is to seek to provoke so-called "inter-ethnic" conflicts in Russia. In recent months, real pogroms against the workers of the Caucasus and Central Asia were fomented by provocations in Kondopoga, Stavropol, and Moscow. The sinister scenario of the dislocation of ex-Yugoslavia hovers over Russia So-called "ethnic conflicts," on the one hand, and the vote of the Duma to allow NATO troops on its territory, on the other hand; this is the scenario that prepared, in 1990-91, the dislocation of the Yugoslav federation built by the Yugoslav peoples in their united struggles against Nazism and exploitation in 1941-46. This is sinister "screenplay" written by the big imperialist powers and implemented at the time by Milosevic, Tudjman, who came from the bureaucracy, to crush the united resistance of the Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovakian workers. In the words, written in 1995, of an American expert, Criton Zoakaos, a Poli-economics professor: "In 1987, the former Yugoslavia was still a state that functioned. Then the IMF decided to take into its control the economic policies and implement well-known shock therapy: devaluation, wage freeze, and price liberalization Š When the IMF's initial shock therapy hit Yugoslavia, the first form taken by social disorder was not ethnic tension, but massive and repeated strikes and other actions by workers. Š. In general, people did not turn toward ethnic solution until all possibilities to achieve a normal economic life were destroyed. The 'ethnic cleansing' only took place after the 'shock therapy' of the IMF did its work." This bloody scenario led today to the so-called "independence" of Kosovo, which is under the control of the American base of Camp Bondsteel. The offensive to definitively separate Kosovo from what remains of the former Yugoslavia constitutes, for the moment, the latest chapter of the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation, encouraged by the European Union and the United State, through the instrument of the different factions of the Titoist bureaucracy, who have become Mafioso agents directly working for imperialism. This is not about people's rights. This is to make Kosovo a protectorate under the tutelage of the European Union and NATO and to fight against the goal of the people of the Balkans to reestablish the Yugoslav federation on the basis on social property, the sovereignty of the peoples, and the establishment of relationships of fraternity, that is, the rupture with the European Union, NATO, and the removal of all the troops. According to Le Figaro (June 9, 2007), the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, "Yugoslavia is done with!" For this partisan of American policies, it is necessary to prevent the only democratic solution allowing for fraternal and peaceful relationships to be established between our peoples: the Yugoslav Federation and the Balkans-Danube Federation. And who can believe that Putin, who has the Duma vote to abandon all sovereignty vis a vis NATO and who aims to provoke so-called ethnic conflicts between workers in Russia, is opposed to these policies of destruction? We are seeing a policy of "balkanization" by the European Union, which is at the service of finance capital that wants to destroy all the conquests of the workers throughout the continent. As French capitalist newspaper said, "On the Old Continent, Balkanization is no longer a recipe for disaster." (Les Echos) These are simply the policies of U.S. imperialism - at the service of the decaying regime of the private ownership of the means of production - to dislocate nations, destroy all the conquests of civilization and humanity, as can be seen in the Middle East, through the bloody occupation of Iraq, and in Africa, a continent pillaged and martyred. It can also be seen within the United States by the plans of deindustrialization and layoffs. But they have still not succeeded. When the World Bank mopes about "the delays regarding the reforms" it implicitly recognized that our peoples, the workers of our countries, refuse to be denied their dignity. The peoples of the world, from Africa to the Middle East, from Latin America to North America, want to live. This is the resistance that exists in all our countries, which searches to find points of support to defend state property against the privatizations. This resistance to the policies of Bush and the big imperialist institutions (NATO, European Union, IMF, etc.) must be expressed. We do not claim to have ready-made answers; we only aim to submit these first thoughts for the reflection of each of us. We, activists of the Workers Politics Alliance, affiliated to the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples, would like to open a free discussion between us, around two major questions in our eyes: - Against all privatizations, for the defense and reconquest of the social conquests, public enterprises, and state property; thus, the rejection of the policies of privatization/destruction dictated by the imperialist international institutions: IMF, World Bank, European Union; - For the free union of nations and people, the constitution of a Free Federation of Peoples of Yugoslavia and the Balkans-Danubian region; the constitution of a Free Union of Peoples of Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR, against "balkanization," for the dismantling of the military bases. We propose, thus, to invite the labor activists of all tendencies to this conference, which we are proud to host in the industrial town of Cacak, 150 km from Belgrade, in Serbia, on Saturday, October 27 and Sunday, October 28. Receive, dear friends and comrades, our fraternal greetings. Pavlusko Imsirovic,
Endnotes (1) Wars of destruction that led today to a military occupation of the Balkans: military bases in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. The NATO bases shelter several thousands American soldiers in Romania and Bulgaria, whose governments protect the sadly celebrated "secret prisons" of the CIA. (2) Putin declared a few days later: "The whole world knows that the Balkans and the Black Sea are zones where we have a particular interest." The press interpreted this is "the return of Russia's influence in the Balkans." But at the service of whom? As we will show, it is at the service of American imperialism. (3) Although, in my opinion, I think that state property was threatened and attacked by the bureaucracy in the framework of the theory of so-called socialism in one country. (4) Following this same "principal," a few years ago, in Italy, a fighter pilot of a NATO base, who, due to negligence, caused the death of several Italian citizens, was able to escape Italian justice and was condemned to a symbolic sentence by court in the United States. ********************
Can the people of Ivory Coast receive peace from the agreement signed in Ouagadougou? Interview with a trade union leader of Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast, long presented as one of the most stable countries of Africa, has lived for five years in a situation of violence and civil war, similar to the fate suffered by other countries in Africa. The country has literally been cut in half, the north, controlled by the rebellion and its military head Guillaume Soro, and the south controlled by the government of Laurent Gbagbo. The population has suffered the dramatic fate of all the peoples of Africa who face the same situation: assassinations, forced displacement, hunger, and misery. The agreements that just took place will not solve this situation. The most recent agreement signed in Ouagadougou established a "unity government" uniting the two parties. Is this the solution the peoples of Ivory Coast have been waiting for? We give the platform to a trade union leader of Ivory Coast. ----- What is your appreciation of the situation since the Ouagadougou agreements? First of all, it is clear that all the people of our country want peace, not only to stop the bloodbath, but because war was accompanied by economic dismantling, particularly in the north of the country, where the people want peace at any cost. It is necessary to know that for five years there have not been schools or hospitals worthy of this name in this part of Ivory Coast. A whole series of illnesses reemerged, not to mention the fact that voyages in the interior of the country constitute real combat zones, due to their full control by military forces. Thus, for all these reasons, the people felt that the Ouagadougou agreement was a good thing. But, looking more closely, it becomes clear that things are more precarious. This was confirmed in recent days by the assassination attempt against Guillaume Soro (1). Before this attempt, the press talked about the tensions within the army, because some corporals and sergeants of the national army who became rebel captains or commanders (named by Soro) wanted to reintegrate into the national army; this is rejected by the "loyalists." What are the origins of the conflict? I think the origin of the conflict lies in the year 1993, when Konan Bedie, who took over after Houphouet-Boigny (first president of independent Ivory Coast), who invented the notion of "ivoriness." According to this new doctrine, all immigrants and all people of our country whose ethnic groups have been in our country since the 17th century. Why did he invent this notion? In the years 1980-1990, Ivory Coast, like numerous countries in Africa, was submitted to the Structural Adjustment Plans, with the consequences known by all: privatizations, the disappearance of public services, aggravation of conditions of public health and teaching. At the same time, Ivory Coast was confronted with a more and more heavy debt and ferocious competition on the international market for coffee and cacao. "Ivoriness" aimed to turn the attention away from the real problems and was the first attempt to divide the country. This tentative was momentarily stopped by the vigorous campaign of the FESACI union confederation, which called on the workers to reject the mortal danger of "ivoriness" and to remain united. Without a doubt, at the time, this position was a serious point of support to save the unity of the country. What happened next? In 1994, a new blow against the unity and sovereignty of the country was dealt by the imperialist powers and the international institutions. In 1994 was the devaluation of the CFA Franc, which led to a collapse in cocoa and café prices, a more than 50% drop. This was also the year when, in Caistab, the Ministry of Agricultural Price Stabilization, which up until then allowed for price balances, was dismantled. Essentially, since this date, numerous small coffee and cocoa producers were ruined and cocoa, of which Ivory Coast is the world's number producer, passed into the control of the American multinationals. In fact, the current conflict developed on the basis of the destruction of our nation by the structural adjustment plans, the debt, and the imperialist struggles for the control of the riches of the country. The recent discovery of oil off the shores of Abidjan is a supplementary illustration of this. You are a university teacher? Several strikes have taken place in recent months. What were the origins of this? The state recruiters higher education teachers with a doctorate, but, up to the present, it continued to give them the salaries of college and high school teachers; the public sector does not recognize doctorates, despite the decrees taken to fill this injustice. This was the basis of the strike that demanded principally a wage commensurate with a doctorate. But of course there were other demands. On of these, research funds, was satisfied in an acceptable manner, and allowed for us to stop the strike on the condition that a correct wage be examined in January 2007. The government did not respect this last conditions and so in February 2007 we began a new strike. After three months of unprecedented mobilization, we met with the government and the president. What were the results of the strike? First of all, this strike had a national character, because all the establishments of higher education participated. Close to 95% of teachers have responded consistently to strike calls for four months and for the over two years that the strike coordination has existed. The first demand to be satisfied for the moment concerned the research stipend. Before the strike, one received 113.6 Euros per semester for this task. After the strike, this sum went to 606 Euros, to be paid twice throughout the year. We felt we had won a victory and suspended the strike. The second demand, and the most important in our eyes, was the revalorization of our salaries: to this date, an assistant receives a monthly wage of 507.5 Euros. After the extraordinary and testing mobilization of recent weeks, we reached an agreement that would lead progressively to a rise to a salary of 1,198.5 Euros by January 2009. These revenues include the wage and the stipend that we also demanded, which were not satisfied satisfactorily. The decree sanctioning these agreements is set for July 29. What lessons to you draw from this movement? This was not an isolated movement. For two year, Ivory Coast has seen an unceasing wave of strikes in all sectors, particularly in education. In our strike, we did not cease for a moment to strengthen our unity. We realized that only demands founded on our common demands could firmly unite the teachers and the researchers among them and lead to victory. It is clear that teachers need independent trade union organizations and the experience acquires in the struggles of these recent will allow us to advance in this direction. I would like to end on an optimistic note. It is true that the population is today worried after the attack on the Prime Minister and that the situation is very unstable. Nevertheless, the functionaries are progressively returning to work, and the decision to have, for the first time since the beginning of the war, a united and national baccalaureate exams of the BEPC and the CEPE is a strong sign that the workers do not want to be divided and want to recover a sovereign state. ----- Endnotes 1) Following the Ouagadougou agreements, a "unity government" was constituted. The presidency was given to Laurent Gbagbo and the post of Prime Minister was given to the rebel chief, Guillaume Soro. The latter was the object of a failed assassination attempt. ************************
New Orleans: 56,000 survivors of the Hurricane (August 2005) are being housed in highly toxic trailers From August 29 to September 2, in New Orleans, the International Tribunal to Judge Those Responsible for the Tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will take place. The hurricane took the lives of at least 1,836 people, most of whom were Black. The root of this was the state of decay of the levees allowed by the local, state, and federal authorities and the criminal abandonment by these authorities of the Black population, which remained without help for days after the passing of the hurricane.
Worse, a new report accuses FEMA (the national emergency agency) of having housed survivors in provisional housing trailers built with materials that emit a toxic gas in heat and humidity. This is a scandal. FEMA, already accused for its criminal negligence at the moment of the catastrophe, is accused of housing 56,000 survivors in trailers that used formol, a derivative of formaldehyde, which under heat and humidity reaches a quantity toxic for humans. Over a year and half ago the families constrained to live in these trailers complained of vomiting, bloody noses, and strong headaches. FEMA itself admits, after having administered various tests, that the formol levels were 75 times higher than the limits tolerated by the health authorities. At this level, the gas emitted can blind, provoke breathing troubles, and cause cancer.
It continued to sell these sinister contaminated barracks, declaring:
"We warn the buyers of the dangers of formol" and cynically
advised them to "open their windows and doors."
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Open World Conference of Workers