Lunes, Nov. 27, 2006= Aztlan-Americas News Report

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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B0920A8FD-DF65-4D71-98C9-401EB38BC965%7D)&language=EN

Monday, November 27, 2006
Ecuador Boosts Latin American Dynamics

Quito, Nov 27 (Prensa Latina) Besides deciding a deep change for a nation in crisis, Ecuadorians have determined an important movement inside the Latin American political panorama.

With the election of economist Rafael Correa, of Alianza Pais movement, as their president, voters thrashed the intensification of neoliberalism and buttressed a new project focused on the social sector and regional integration.

That decision takes place in a key year for Latin America, where progressive governments are finally gaining ground.

Correa´s win should influence in the correlation of forces at the Andean Community of Nations, affected by the decision of Peru and Colombia to seal free trade agreements with the US.

His opposition to sign such a pact with Washington and renew in 2009 the agreement on the US naval base in Manta, are among the main goals of his future administration.

Concerning the foreign debt, the Alianza Pais leader pleads for a decent, sovereign and technical renegotiation without excluding an eventual moratorium.

He also backs the reincorporation of Ecuador into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and previously said he will renegotiate existing conventions with private companies in the nation.

With those positions and once his electoral triumph is officially confirmed, Correa will take office on January 15 and lead this Andean state in a Latin American perspective.

According to economist Alberto Acosta, future head of the Energy ministry, the new government will prioritize its people´s wellbeing instead of the payment of the foreign debt.

They aspire to get the country back on its feet at the international arena to defend the national interests.

Acosta also pointed out that Ecuador will propose other developing states in debt to create an international arbitration court on sovereign debit.

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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1887

Monday, Nov 27, 2006
The Rise of Rafael Correa
Ecuador and the Contradictions of Chavismo
By: Nikolas Kozloff - CounterPunch

It now looks as if Rafael Correa, a leftist candidate in Ecuador, has handily won his country's presidential election. As of Monday morning, with about 21 percent of the ballot counted, Correa had 65 percent compared to 35 percent for Alvaro Noboa, according to Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal. If Correa wins, he will preside over Ecuador for a four year term.

It's yet another feather in the cap for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had long cultivated the aspiring leader's support. What's more, it's a stinging blow against the Bush administration which now must confront a much more unenviable political milieu in the region. Ecuador now joins other left leaning regimes such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Chile, all of which are sympathetic to Chavez.

Bush cannot dismiss the Correa victory as inconsequential: Ecuador is currently the second largest South American exporter of crude to the U.S. The small Andean country hosts the only U.S. military base in South America, where 400 troops are currently stationed. Correa opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at the air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights. The U.S. lease expires in 2009.

"If they want," Correa has said ironically, "we won't close the base in 2009, but the United States would have to allow us to have an Ecuadoran base in Miami in return."

It's no secret that Chavez and Correa had a personal rapport. During a short stint in 2005 as finance minister under the regime of Alfredo Palacio, Correa brokered a $300 million loan from Chavez. As a result of his diplomacy, Correa was forced out of the government. Allegedly, Correa pursued the loan deal behind Palacio's back. He later visited Chavez's home state of Barinas, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chavez's parents.

"It is necessary to overcome all the fallacies of neoliberalism," Correa has declared. Borrowing one of Chavez's favorite slogans, Correa says he also supports so-called "socialism for the twenty first century."

Correa: "Whipping" Ecuador's Politicians, and the U.S., into Shape

Unlike Chavez, Correa does not come from a military background but grew up in a middle class family; the young politician also dresses impeccably. He got his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois and is a follower of left wing economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

To his credit, Correa spent a year volunteering in a highland town called Zumbahua and speaks Quichua, an indigenous language. Natives from Zumbahua remember Correa as a man who walked two or three hours to remote villages in a poncho and broken shoes to give classes.

Correa pursued an amusing campaign. During rallies, he would bounce on stage to his campaign anthem, set to the tune of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going to Take It." As the music blared, Correa would break out a brown leather belt, which he would flex along to the music.

For Correa, the belt became the chief slogan of his campaign: "Dale Correa." In Spanish, the phrase means "Give Them the Belt." Correa promised to use that belt to whip Ecuador's politicians into shape.

Correa campaigned on pledges to prioritize social spending over repaying debt. He has even stated that the Andean country might want to default. He also declared that he would renegotiate contracts with foreign oil producers doing business in the country. Correa says he wants to increase funds for the poor and opposes a free trade deal with the U.S.

"We are not against the international economy," Correa has stated, "but we will not negotiate a treaty under unequal terms with the United States."

Correa, too, has nothing but contempt for George Bush.

When he was recently asked about Chavez's "devil" diatribe against the U.S. president at the United Nations, Correa remarked amusingly, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dimwitted President who has done great damage to the world" [after he was defeated by Noboa in the first round of voting Correa toned down his rhetoric, stating that his comments about Bush were "imprudent" and that Ecuador would like to continue its strong tries to the United States]

Noboa Plays the Chavez Card

In an effort to scare voters, Alvaro Noboa, a banana magnate in Ecuador, sought to label Correa as a Chavez puppet. Noboa, in an allusion to Chavez's military background, labeled his adversary "Colonel Correa."

Correa, the Noboa campaign charged, was being financed by Venezuela. In a bombastic tirade, Noboa even declared, "the Chavez-Correa duo has played dirty in an effort to conquer Ecuador and submit it to slavery." If he were elected, Noboa promised, he would break relations with Caracas.

Correa denied that his campaign was financed by Chavez and in a biting aside declared that his friendship with the Venezuelan leader was as legitimate as President Bush's friendship with the bin Laden family.

"They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo," Correa explained. "The only thing left is for them to say that Bin Laden was financing me."

Chavez, perhaps fearing that any statement on his part might tilt the election in favor of Noboa, initially remained silent as regards the Ecuadoran election. But at last the effusive Chavez could no longer constrain himself and broke his silence.

The Venezuelan leader accused Noboa of baiting him in an effort to gain the "applause" of the United States. Chavez furthermore expressed doubts about the veracity of the voting result in the first presidential run off in October, in which Correa came in second. In his own inflammatory broadside, Chavez accused Noboa of being "an exploiter of child labor" on his banana plantations and a "fundamentalist of the extreme right."

In Ecuador, Chavez said, "there are also strange things going on. A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits his workers, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn't pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first [electoral] round."

The Noboa campaign, in an escalating war of words, shot back that the Venezuelan Ambassador should be expelled from Ecuador due to Chavez's meddling.

Ecuadoran Indigenous Peoples and Chavez

Judging from the early electoral returns, Ecuadoran voters, many of whom are indigenous, disregarded Noboa's fire and brimstone rhetoric. Indians, who account for 40% of Ecuador's population of 13 million, are a potent political force in the country. Correa has capitalized on indigenous support. He represents Alianza País, a coalition that garnered the support of indigenous and social movements which brought down the government of Lucio Gutierrez in April 2005.

What does the Correa win mean for Chavez's wider hemispheric ambitions?

As I explain in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), Chavez has long sought to cultivate ties to Ecuador's indigenous peoples. Ecuadoran Indians have long feared that their traditional lands were being exploited to serve a rapacious United States intent on corporate expansion. U.S. missionaries have fueled the resentment. According to indigenous activists, the missionaries hastened the penetration of U.S. corporations. A key example, according to Huaorani Indians, was the petroleum industry which worked with the missionaries to open up traditional lands.

Chavez has done much to cultivate the support of indigenous peoples. He plays up his own indigenous roots, for example. He also expelled the Protestant New Tribes Mission from Venezuela, which he said was collaborating with the CIA.

"We don't want the New Tribes here," Chavez declared. "Enough colonialism! 500 years is enough!"

In opposing the missionaries, Chavez has echoed the agenda of Ecuador's indigenous peoples, who called for the expulsion of North American missionaries from their country. CONAIE, Ecuador's indigenous federation, in fact endorses many of Chavez's positions such as an end to U.S. militarization in the region and an end to neo liberal economic policies. CONAIE, like Rafael Correa, wants Ecuador to terminate the U.S. lease at the Manta military base. CONAIE, as well as the movement's political wing Patchakutik, has backed Chavez. CONAIE in fact has condemned the "fascist" opposition in Venezuela and derided U.S. interventionism.

Chavez has not only cultivated political ties with hemispheric leaders but also with social movements from below. In an innovative move, Chavez has sponsored something called the Bolivarian Congress of Peoples in Caracas. CONAIE officials attended the Congress, as did Humberto Cholango, president of the Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador. Cholango remarked at the time, "no one can stop this [Bolivarian] Revolution in Venezuela, we will keep on defeating the Creole oligarchies and the Yankeesthe time has come for South America to rise up to defeat the empireLong live the triumph of the Venezuelan people."

Cholango is an important link in the future Chavez-Correa alliance. His Kichwa Confederation has backed Correa. In a communiqué, the Confederation wrote, "We will not let Noboa, who owns 120 companies and made his fortune by exploiting children in his companies, take control of the country to deliver water, deserts, oil, mines, forests and biodiversity to big private transnational corporations."

Ecuadoran Oriente: Area of Conflict

Chavez has exchanged oil for political influence throughout the region in such countries as Nicaragua, as I explained in my earlier Counterpunch column [see "A New Kind of Oil Diplomacy: In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave?, November 7, 2006]. In Ecuador, Chavez may opt for a similar strategy but here the Venezuelan leader has to watch out for pitfalls that could reveal serious contradictions within his movement.

With a Correa administration in place, Chavez will be in an advantageous position to advance his plans for hemispheric energy integration. Ecuador's state oil company Petroecuador has been involved in longstanding negotiations with Venezuela to refine its crude. Ecuador is also interested in acquiring Venezuelan diesel and gasoline to cover its own internal demand. Ecuador's growing energy ties with Venezuela have been applauded by important figures such as Luis Macas, long associated with the CONAIE.

The dilemma for Ecuador is that, while oil represents about a quarter of the country's GDP, many disadvantaged communities have been unhappy with development. The north eastern section of Ecuador, the "Oriente," has long been the scene of serious social unrest. I know something about the social and environmental conflicts in the area, having written a couple of articles about the Huorani Indians for the Ecuadoran magazine 15 Dias and the Quito daily Hoy.

In 1992, having just completed a reporting internship at WBAI radio in New York, I headed to Quito. At that time, North American as well as Ecuadoran environmental groups were concerned about Maxus Corporation, a Texas-based energy company. The influential company had the support of the government, the press, and North American Protestant missionaries. The Huaorani had just traveled to Quito, where they had carried out a protest in front of Maxus headquarters.

The Indians demanded that Maxus halt its construction of a highway in block 16, which fell in their traditional homeland. I flew out to the Amazon and interviewed the Indians who were living in deplorable health and sanitary conditions. In my articles, I dissected Maxus' unconvincing propaganda and warned about imminent environmental problems.

Venezuelan Involvement in the Ecuadoran Oil Industry?

I left Ecuador in late 1993, and not surprisingly the unrest continued. In 2002, the government declared a state of emergency following protests in Sucumbios and Orellana provinces. Protesters hit the streets, demanding greater investment in their communities. Indigenous peoples in the area had long felt that they had not adequately shared in the benefits of oil development. The military used teargas to break up protests which blocked oil wells.

In August 2005 the disturbances continued, with an oil strike hitting Orellana and Sucumbios. At that time, Chavez came to the aid of Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacios by agreeing to send Venezuelan crude to the Andean nation. At the time, Chavez expressed sympathy with Ecuador "because we [Venezuela] have already passed through this type of thing with the oil sabotage [the oil lock out in 2002-3 encouraged by the Venezuelan opposition]."

Early this year, Petroecuador was forced to suspend exports when protesters, unhappy about longstanding environmental damage, demanded the departure of U.S. oil company Oxy and took over a pumping station vital to the functioning of a pipeline. Protesters, led by local politicians from the Amazon province of Napo, demanded that the government pay them funds for infrastructure projects in local communities.

In March, the government put three provinces under military control when workers initiated a strike for unpaid wages and improved working conditions. At one point, the government declared a state of emergency in Napo, when protesters demanded that the oil companies invest more of their profits in the area.

Guadalupe Llori, the prefect of Orellana, remarked "If we are treated like animals we are going to react like animals. We could join the workers and demand the government respect our rights." Petroecuador technicians and troops finally took control of oil facilities and cleared strikers from vital sites.

In May, Petroecuador took over oil wells belonging to Oxy's block 15 oil concession; the Ecuadoran state wants the Venezuelan state company PdVSA to refine 75% of the 100,000 barrels per day within the old concession. According to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, Ecuador is considering Venezuela as a possible partner in the fields formerly operated by Oxy.

Chavismo and Its Hemispheric Contradictions

If PdVSA had a presence in block 15, this would lead to a potential problem for Chavez. Having proclaimed its support for social and environmental justice, as well as indigenous rights, Venezuela would now be operating in an area long marked by social unrest and discrimination of indigenous peoples.

In the short term, Chavez may take some pride in the fact that Bush received another black eye in South America; what's more Venezuela can now count on Correa's support as well as the indigenous movement. But in the long term, Chavez could run the risk of alienating many of his supporters if Venezuela is perceived to be an accomplice in misguided development schemes.

In the coming years, will Chavez maintain his political support amongst disadvantaged peoples throughout the hemisphere, or will his popularity be tarnished by oil diplomacy? Up to now, Chavez has certainly used oil as an effective geopolitical instrument, but it may prove his Achilles Heel if he is not careful.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martin's Press).

Original source / relevant link: CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff11272006.html

Related Article=
Monday, September 25, 2006 @9:00 PM
Ecuador Candidate Defends Chavez Ties: By GONZALO SOLANO
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501191.html

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/ecuador_election

Mon Nov 27, 2006 6:29 AM ET
Leftist economist wins Ecuador election
By Monte Hayes, Associated Press Writer

Quito, Ecuador - A leftist economist who called for Ecuador to cut ties with international lenders appeared to have easily won the presidency of this poor, politically unstable Andean nation, strengthening South America's tilt to the left.

Partial returns from Sunday's voting showed that Rafael Correa — who has worried Washington with calls to limit foreign debt payments — would join left-leaning leaders in Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, where he is friends with anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez.

The returns showed Correa with as many as twice the votes recorded as for his banana tycoon rival, who claimed the polls were rigged.

Correa was a fresh face in a field of established politicians, and won a place in Sunday's runoff by pledging a "citizens' revolution" against Ecuador's discredited political system. During the campaign, he called for Ecuador to cut ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Correa, who has called President Bush "dimwitted," also wants to hold a referendum to rewrite the constitution to reduce the power of traditional parties and limit U.S. military activities in Ecuador.

"We receive this triumph with deep serenity and humility," the 43-year-old, who has an economics doctorate from the University of Illinois, told a news conference. "When we take office it will finally be the Ecuadorean people who are assuming power."

With 31 percent of the ballots counted, Correa had nearly 67 percent compared to 33 percent for Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal said before dawn Monday. Election officials said more returns were expected later Monday but that final results may not be known until Tuesday.

But Noboa, a Bible-toting billionaire who counts the Kennedys and Rockefellers among his friends, declined to concede defeat, saying he would wait for the final vote results.

"There has been a scenario in which they are preparing to commit fraud," Noboa told dozens of his supporters in the coastal city of Guayaquil. He said he instructed his campaign chiefs "to go to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and demand that they open the ballot boxes to count vote for vote so there can be no doubt."

Ecuador has had eight presidents since 1996, including three who were driven from office by street protests.

Correa pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes and copied Noboa's promise to double a $36 "poverty bonus" that 1.2 million poor Ecuadoreans receive each month. Correa began his campaign identifying with Chavez, but backpedaled when he feared the comparison was hurting him in the polls. That appeared to change somewhat Sunday night.

"Hopefully, we will get much, much closer to Chavez," he told Channel 8 television in an interview. "Chavez is my personal friend, but in my house, my friends aren't in charge, I am. And in Ecuador, it will be Ecuadoreans in charge."

He said he would not rule out also seeking stronger ties to other more moderate leftist presidents like Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and with Washington, if President Bush makes it worthwhile for Ecuador.

Correa stood firm, however, on not signing a free-trade deal with the United States, "because, among other things, it would destroy our agriculture, cattle and poultry" industries. At his first news conference following the election, Correa said Ecuador could rejoin the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.

"If it is possible we will rejoin OPEC," he said. Ecuador, which produces some 535,000 barrels of oil a day, left OPEC in 1993.

He also announced that leftist economists Ricardo Patino and Alberto Acosta, whom he had mentioned earlier as possible Cabinet ministers, would be appointed to head the ministries of economy and energy.

Correa was favored to win the first round but came in second to Noboa in the field of 13 after his comments on Bush and threat to reduce payments on Ecuador's $16.1 billion foreign debt rattled investors. Prior to the second round of voting, he softened his radical rhetoric and began to make populist promises of his own.

Correa served just 106 days last year as finance minister under interim President Alfredo Palacio, who replaced Lucio Gutierrez in the midst of street protests in April 2005.

Noboa, who was seeking the presidency for the third time, had run an old-fashioned populist campaign, crisscrossing Ecuador handing out computers, medicine and money.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_pinochet

Mon Nov 27, 2006 @1:13 PM ET
Pinochet indicted for 1973 executions
By Eduardo Gallardo, Associated Press Writer

Santiago, Chile - Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was indicted Monday and ordered to remain under house arrest for the execution of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected Marxist president who was toppled in a 1973 coup.

The indictment came after Pinochet's 91st birthday Saturday, which he marked by issuing a statement for the first time taking full political responsibility for abuses committed by his regime.

Monday's indictment was the fifth time Pinochet has been put under house arrest on charges stemming from human rights violations during his 1973-90 dictatorship. The document was issued by Judge Victor Montiglio, the Supreme Court press office said. Pinochet was stripped of his immunity from prosecution in the case last July.

The indictment alleges kidnapping and homicide in connection with the deaths of two Allende bodyguards — Wagner Salinas and Francisco Lara — who were arrested the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973. Both were executed by firing squad four weeks later, the military regime announced at the time. Salinas was a former South American heavyweight boxing champion.

More than 15 of Allende's bodyguards and aides were taken from the government palace during the coup and remain unaccounted for. Allende committed suicide during the military's bombardment of the palace.

There was no immediate reaction from Pinochet's lawyers, but they are expected to appeal the indictment to the Supreme Court, as they have in earlier cases. Two of those cases were closed when the courts ruled Pinochet's health prevented him from standing trial. In addition to Monday's indictment, three others are pending, two alleging human rights violations and a third charging tax evasion.

Pinochet has been diagnosed with a mild dementia caused by several strokes. He also suffers from diabetes and arthritis and needs a pacemaker.

On Saturday, Pinochet issued a statement taking political — though not explicitly legal — responsibility for the actions of his regime.

"Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbor no rancor against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done which had no other goal than making Chile greater and avoiding its disintegration," he said.

Scores of other legal actions have been filed against Pinochet by relatives of victims of his regime. During his rule, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons, according to an independent commission report.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/argentina_dirty_war_museum_1

Monday, November 27, 2006 AM
Argentine torture site to become museum
By Lauren Smiley, Associated Press Writer

Buenos Aires, Argentina - It took two decades for the government to begin recognizing the sites where thousands of citizens were tortured and killed by the military junta during Argentina's so-called Dirty War, and next year the most infamous one will finally be vacated by the military so it can become a museum.

President Nestor Kirchner announced plans in 2004 to create a "Museum of Memory" on the site of the Navy Mechanics' School, resolving a long controversy over what to do with the white-colonnaded buildings on well-tended lawns that endure as a symbol of the 1976-1983 repression.

Descriptive markers have already been installed in the building where prisoners were held, and the Navy has agreed to vacate all 35 structures by September 2007. Government officials, human rights groups and families of the disappeared are now debating final proposals for how to use the space.

Until Kirchner's announcement, the buildings were still used by the navy and not even a plaque noted the atrocities committed there.

Three of the capital's other detention sites have been set aside, and a memory park is under construction along the River Plate, near one of the airports where planes left on "death flights" to drop drugged captives into the South Atlantic.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_chavez_rally

Sun Nov 26, 2006 @10:28 PM ET
Chavez says 'win' dedicated to Castro
By Elizabeth M. Nunez, Associated Press Writer

Caracas, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez told hundreds of thousands of red-clad supporters Sunday that he will win re-election next weekend by an overwhelming margin and dedicate his victory to ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
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Chavez noted the Dec. 3 election will be the same weekend that Cuba celebrates the 50th anniversary of Castro's arrival in Cuba with other armed rebels aboard a yacht to launch the guerrilla war that eventually brought him to power.

"This victory on Dec. 3 ... we're going to dedicate it to the 50 years since the arrival of the revolutionary boat Granma led by Fidel Castro to the coast of Cuba," Chavez said to cheers. "Fidel, applause from Venezuela! Long live Cuba! Long live revolutionary Cuba!"

Chavez, a staunch opponent of Washington, considers the ailing Cuban leader a mentor but has often said the socialism he seeks for Venezuela does not aim to copy Cuba's system. His critics, including his main election rival Manuel Rosales, accuse Chavez of moving toward Cuba-style authoritarianism.

In his speech, Chavez suggested Rosales was a pawn of the U.S. government and revisited an attack he used against President Bush during an address at the U.N. in September, when he called the U.S. leader the devil.

"Let's not forget that we are facing the very devil. On Dec. 3, we face at the ballot box the imperialist government of the United States of America. That is our real adversary," Chavez said in his speech Sunday.

Peering through a pair of binoculars down a major avenue packed with supporters wearing the color of his party, Chavez said he admired what he called the "red tide."

"Our goal is not to win" the election, Chavez said amid the thunder of fireworks. "We must outdo our previous triumphs. ... We are going to win in a way that is overwhelming, crushing."

Sunday's rally was the largest in support of Chavez since campaigning began in August and appeared to number in the hundreds of thousands. There were no official estimate by police.

His rally came a day after hundreds of thousands of Rosales supporters flooded a major highway in one of the largest anti-Chavez demonstrations in years. Rosales, a state governor who favors a free-market economy, trailed Chavez by a wide margin in an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/paraguay_armed_forces

Sun Nov 26, 2006 @10:11 PM ET
Paraguay leader fires armed forces chief
By Pedro Servin, Associated Press Writer

Asuncion, Paraguay - Paraguay's president unexpectedly fired the armed forces chief and 58 military and police officers Sunday, calling it a routine reshuffling of the military high command and dismissing suggestions it was politically motivated.

President Nicanor Duarte did not provide a reason for the dismissals, aside from saying they were "normal in the institutional life of the military." However, opposition lawmakers had been clamoring for the ouster of the armed force chief, Gen. Key Kanazawa, for the last year.

Last December, senators criticized Kanazawa for releasing a signed communique criticizing legislators for failing to promote some 300 military officers. The senators said the military had no right to intervene in their affairs because the armed forces are subject to civilian rule.

Military-civilian relations have been a sensitive issue since Paraguay's 35-year dictatorship ended in 1989 with the ouster of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who died in exile in Brazil on Aug. 16.

Duarte replaced Kanazawa with Gen. Bernardino Soto. He also forced 12 army and naval chief officers to resign and fired 46 police officers, including the assistant national police chief.

"I've undertaken these changes in the armed forces command in accordance with the sovereign powers granted to me as commander in chief under the constitution," Duarte said at a news conference at his official residence.

He said the dismissals "are not the result of political factors."

However, the Clarin newspaper of neighboring Argentina, South America's largest-circulation daily, reported the move was likely to help Duarte calm opposition lawmakers in Congress who blocked several bills since their angry outburst over Kanazawa's communique.

Duarte dismissed 32 top police officers in March 2005, a month after authorities found the body of Cecilia Cubas, the kidnapped daughter of former President Raul Cubas. The abduction rocked this small South American country amid accusations that police investigators didn't do enough to find the woman before she was killed.

A Paraguayan leftist with purported links to a Colombian guerrilla leader was arrested on suspicion of masterminding the kidnapping, but the motive for the killing has remained unclear.
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http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2382.html

November 24, 2006
Marcos: “We Are On the Eve of Either a Great Uprising or a Civil War”
Calderón Will Begin to Fall from the Day He Takes Office, Warns the Rebel Leader
By Hermann Bellinghausen
La Jornada
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Bagdad, Tamaulipas, November 23: December 1, the day that Felipe Calderón takes office, will be “the beginning of the end for a political system that, since the Mexican Revolution, became deformed and began to cheat generation after generation, until this one arrived and said, ‘Enough,’” warned Subcomandante Marcos during a press conference. Calderón, he added, “will begin to fall from his first day.”

He stated, “we are on the eve of either a great uprising or a civil war.” As to the question of who would lead the uprising, he responded, “the people, each one in his or her own place, within a system of mutual support. If we can not succeed in having it happen that way, there will have to be spontaneous uprisings, civil explosions all over, a civil war in which each person is only looking out for his or her own well-being, because the possibility is already there for things to cross that line.” He cited the case of Oaxaca, where “there are no leaders or political bosses; it is the people themselves who have organized. It will be like that across the entire country.”

With respect to the current phase of the Other Campaign, he explained, “after the Zapatistas lifted the veil that was obscuring the reality of indigenous communities in Chiapas, we ventured out to find poverty in the countryside and in the cities, and now we see it on the coast as well. In this country, there is a façade being propped up by the political parties, and recently by Vicente Fox, that says everything is fine.”

In the case of the northern part of the country, he added, it “is chilling” how different reality is from what they say it is: “they say the north supports the PAN, that they love Fox, that everyone lives well. But what we saw was equal to what is happening in the most humble of indigenous communities in the southwest.”

He posited that Oaxaca is “an indicator” of what is happening across the country. “In Nuevo Laredo, they told us that the problem in Tamaulipas is that everyone here is like Ulises Ruiz: the municipal president, the state congress, the governor. There are too many in the mold of Ulises Ruiz and the people are getting tired of it. If there is not a civil and peaceful way out, which is what we propose in the Other Campaign, it will turn into each person finding their own way however they can.”

He continued, “we do not recognize the official president or the legitimate one. What happens at the top does not matter at all to us. What matters is what will arise from below. When we carry out this uprising, we will do away will the entire political class, including those who call themselves the ‘parliamentary leftists.’”

With regard to the violence and power of drug trafficking, he asserted that these provide “another façade,” which affects the northern states more than anything, where the central focus is on security, and not on the situation of poverty that exists. “The conflicts between drug traffickers, or between drug traffickers and security forces, or between drug traffickers and politicians, are overstated, because we know that the politicians are in league with some of the drug cartels. Meanwhile, the fundamental is forgotten; for example, what is happening in Playa Bagdad, Nuevo Laredo or Reynosa, to mention Tamaulipas. These places only make it into the news when there are clashes between groups of criminals, while what is happening to the people who are working and struggling is forgotten.”

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_fox_fainting

Sun Nov 26, 2006 @10:00 PM ET
Mexico leader has brief fainting spell

Mexico City - Outgoing President Vicente Fox suffered a brief fainting spell on Sunday during an outing with legislators at his ranch, the president's office said.

Fox's office said in a statement the leader "suffered a slight fainting spell due to overexposure to the sun." It was unclear if he actually lost consciousness or simply felt faint.

Local media reported that Fox either walked or was helped into a nearby building to get out of the sun. After a medical examination, Fox rejoined the group at the ranch, located in the north-central state of Guanajuato.

Fox's last day in office is Nov. 30. He will be replaced by Felipe Calderon, who won a July election over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador has contested Calderon's victory and threatened to block his inauguration on Dec. 1.
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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/27/1447228

Monday, November 27th, 2006
Police Detain 160 Uprising Leaders in Oaxaca, Tens of Thousands Protest Governor Ruiz
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In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the police have detained at least 160 members of APPO, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples' of Oaxaca. On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Oaxaca to call on the state's governor, Ulises Ruiz., to resign. We go to Oaxaca to get a report.
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In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the police have detained at least 160 members of APPO, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples' of Oaxaca. On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Oaxaca to call on the state's governor Ulises Ruiz to resign. Dozens of people were injured after clashes broke out between the police and protesters. There were unconfirmed reports of several deaths as well.

John Gibler, independent journalist reporting from Oaxaca.
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AMY GOODMAN: As we end our program in the Southern State of Mexico, Oaxaca. Late last night we got independent journalist John Gibler, in Oaxaca he filed this report.

JOHN GIBLER: Thousands of supporters of the Oaxaca People’s Popular Assembly or APPO for spanish initials, marched from the governor’s offices eight miles into Oaxaca City on Saturday. As they entered the city center, protesters formed a circle around the town square, which has been occupied by Federal Police since October 29th. The APPO called for a 48-hour “peaceful siege” of the Federal Police encampment, maintaining a full block of distance between the protesters and the police barricade. Within less than an hour however, police officers robbed a protester of a cooler filled with soda, and set off a series of confrontations, that would lead to a five hour battle ending in gun fire.

With hundreds of protesters and passersby wounded, and at least 150 imprisoned. Enraged by the police of having robbed one of their own in broad daylight, protesters hurled rocks and fired bottle-rockets through plastic tubes at the police, slowly advancing toward their barricade on Alcoa and Morello streets in Central Oaxaca City. As the APPO protesters drew close, the police fired heavy amounts of tear gas, forcing the retreat one block back, and fogging most of the city center with thick clouds of gas.

Protesters and federal police fought along Alcoa for some two hours before the police began to advance, firing more tear-gas and glass marbles through slingshots. By 8pm protesters had been forced out of the city center, many were captured and beaten along side streets by Federal police. Once forced out of the center, uniformed and plain clothed state police officers surrounded and captured dozens of protesters, brutally beating them with batons and firing teargas at close range. State and Federal police also opened fire with hand guns and assault rifles, wounding dozens. In unconfirmed reports, three people were shot and killed, and their bodies hauled off by police.

Throughout the night, plain clothed gunmen, like the paramilitaries who have killed with impunity for months in Oaxaca, entered hospitals throughout the city looking for wounded protesters. Witnesses said, the gunmen threatened hospital workers at gunpoint and removed several wounded people from hospitals. The Director of Hospital General, doctor Felipe Gama, acknowledged the gunmen entered his hospital and roamed the halls with pistols drawn, but he denied reports that they had removed patients.

Protesters in turn burned several government buildings and private businesses and broke windows throughout the city center. APPO spokespeople later denounced these acts, but defended the people's right to act in self-defense, using makeshift weapons such as Molotov Cocktails, bottle rockets and slingshots.

On Sunday morning, State and Federal Police patrolled the city, controlling the Zócalo and Santo Domingo Cathedral, both sites of former protesting encampments. While dozens, perhaps even hundreds of protesters remained hidden in houses throughout the conflict area. The APPO has called to reestablish their protest camp at Santo Domingo on 8:00 a.m., Monday morning.

AMY GOODMAN: That was an independent reporter, John Gibler, reporting from Oaxaca, Mexico. That does it for our program.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_oaxaca_unrest

Sun Nov 26, 2006 @5:39 PM ET
Leftist protesters set fires in Oaxaca
By Rebeca Romero, Associated Press Writer

Oaxaca, Mexico - Leftist protesters trying to force out the Oaxaca state governor set fire to another building Sunday after a night of torching government offices and vehicles in running street battles with police that injured at least 43 people.

The violence broke out late Saturday after masked youths broke away from a protest march by about 4,000 people and began attacking police and buildings in picturesque Oaxaca city.
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Youths hurled rocks, fireworks and gasoline bombs in a failed attempt to encircle federal police holding the main square, which security forces took back in late October from protesters who had held it for months demanding Gov. Ulises Ruiz resign for alleged corruption.
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Police drove off the attackers with tear gas and jets of water from tanker trucks, then advanced in massed ranks to drive protesters from a camp at a smaller plaza two blocks away.
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But bands of young people rampaged through downtown, pushing shopping carts filled with rocks and gasoline bombs.

Court offices in one of Oaxaca's imposing colonial buildings were gutted by flames, and the gangs burned 20 private vehicles and attacked three hotels, throwing gasoline bombs at one and smashing windows at two.

Fires also damaged four buildings housing government offices, one university building and the state hotel association, which has seen tourism reduced to a trickle by six months of demonstrations and violence. Some of the youthful protesters looted several shops.

Firefighters quelled the blazes by early Sunday, but later in the day protesters set a tax office on fire.

Downtown residents watched in horror as buildings burned and streets filled with choking clouds of tear gas and smoke.

Oaxaca resident Josefina Quiros said protesters loosely organized under the leftist People's Assembly of Oaxaca were spreading fear. "We are terrified of the APPO people," she said, referring to the movement by its Spanish initials.

In a press statement, the federal police said 152 people had been arrested and accused outside activists of participating in the unrest, which it said resulted in injuries to four officers and an unspecified number of bystanders.

The statement also said federal police would no longer stay mainly at posts in the main square and a few other spots around the city, but would actively patrol in search of those responsible for "direct attacks on federal police."

State prosecutors said at least 43 people were injured. It was unclear whether that figure included police officers and three journalists who suffered minor injuries during the confrontations.

Prosecutors said there were no reports of deaths. Marcelino Coache, a spokesman for the anti-Ruiz movement, said some protesters suffered serious injuries.

Making one of his first visits downtown since protesters forced state officials out in May, Oaxaca's governor viewed the damage and vowed to punish those responsible.

"All the weight of the law will be applied to those who have committed these acts of vandalism," Ruiz told reporters.

Ruiz earlier blamed the disturbance on radical groups from Mexico City. "These are the death throes of a movement that has already disintegrated," he said at a news conference.
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The unrest began as a strike by teachers, but mushroomed into a broad protest against social and economic injustices in this poor state. Protesters focused their anger on Ruiz, accusing him of brutality, corruption and electoral fraud.

A majority of teachers have returned to work and did not participate in Saturday night's demonstration.

Nine people have been killed over the months, including freelance video journalist Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York, who was filming a group of leftist protesters clashing with a group of armed men. Guns were fired by both sides, although it was not clear who shot first.
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http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=139386

Viernes 24 Noviembre 2006 @10:11pm
APPO press conference from 2 p.m., November 24, 2006.
November 24, 2006

APPO PRESS BULLETIN
TO LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS
TO THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA, MEXICO AND THE WORLD

The APPO maintains its principle demand, the departure of Ulises Ruíz Ortiz and his government supported armed groups from the state of Oaxaca, and when we refer to armed groups, we are referring to the paramilitaries and thugs commanded by Heliodoro Díaz Escarraga, Lino Celaya Luria, Jorge Franco, Bulmaro Rito Salinas and Manuel Martinez Feria, as well as Lizbeth Caña Cadeza, who has nothing but a guerilla mentality in her head.

The mere fact of being in power does not exonerate them from punishment for the deaths and other violations that have been committed against the inhabitants of Oaxaca, and for that reason the APPO will sustain its claim of genocide against Vicente Fox, Carlos Abascal Carranza, Ulises Ruíz Ortiz and the commanders of the PFP.

The APPO asks for the intervention of international organizations and the PGR clear up these assassinations because they are not just of state jurisdiction, given that high power firearms, for the exclusive use of the army, were used. Not a single death can remain unpunished, regardless of the victim’s origin, it is yet another live lost.

The APPO reminds URO that this is still not over, and it will not end until his departure, Oaxaca does not pardon the assassinations and the humiliation of its people, they are unforgivable.

The women of the COMO (Committee of Oaxacan Women) on hunger strike shows further heroics, but also the rejection of the impunity, and that their demands are just, the departure of URO and the police forces of occupation, it is urgent, and only for those who don’t want to see ingovernability will this demands continue.

It is and will be a success, the Grand Megamarch which will leave tomorrow, Saturday the 25th, at 10:00 a.m. from the Casa del Gobierno in Santa María Coyotepec, to cordon off the PFP in the main streets of this capital city. The PFP will only be left with the option to retreat and immediately depart from Oaxaca, the Oaxacans don’t need them, only cowards assassinate and then protect their own, but when they leave, they should bring with them Ulises Ruíz Ortiz and his armed guerillas.

The APPO maintains that there is no space in this great movement for traitors and corrupt bosses, and for them there is only space in history’s dumpster.

NOT ONE STEP BACK IN THIS STRUGGLE!
THE FALL OF THE TYRANT IS IMMANENT!
DISAPPEARANCE OF POWERS NOW!
ALL THE POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

APPO PRESS COMMITTEE agrega tus comentarios / add your comments
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061125/ts_nm/iraq_rumsfeld_dc_1

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general
Sat Nov 25, 2006 @11:45 AM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished,"" she told Saturday's El Pais.

"The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques."

The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion" to secure information.

"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," the document states.

A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment on Karpinski's accusations, while U.S. army in Iraq could not immediately be reached for comment.

Karpinski was withdrawn from Iraq in early 2004, shortly after photographs showing American troops abusing detainees at the prison were flashed around the world. She was subsequently removed from active duty and then demoted to the rank of colonel on unrelated charges.

Karpinski insists she knew nothing about the abuse of prisoners until she saw the photos, as interrogation was carried out in a prison wing run by U.S. military intelligence.

Rumsfeld also authorized the army to break the Geneva Conventions by not registering all prisoners, Karpinski said, explaining how she raised the case of one unregistered inmate with an aide to former U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

"We received a message from the Pentagon, from the Defense Secretary, ordering us to hold the prisoner without registering him. I now know this happened on various occasions."

Karpinski said last week she was ready to testify against Rumsfeld, if a suit filed by civil rights groups in Germany over Abu Ghraib led to a full investigation.

President Bush announced Rumsfeld's resignation after Democrats wrested power from the Republicans in midterm elections earlier this month, partly due to public criticism over the Iraq war.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington)

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http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061127/lam028.html?.v=73

Monday November 27, 2006 @11:00 am ET
Press Release Source: BIENESTAR
Latinos Unite in Hope
13th Annual World AIDS Day Commemoration Honors the Lives of Those Affected by Global Epidemic

Los Angeles, Nov. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- On Friday, December 1st, Latinos in Los Angeles will come together to observe World AIDS Day. The event is organized by BIENESTAR, the largest Latino community based organization in the United States committed to meeting the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS and those most at risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The event will take place at the historic Olvera Street church, Our Lady Queen of Angeles and it will include the participation of Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, reporter Ricardo Quintero and radio hosts Johnny Hernandez and Jaime Pina.

The ceremony is expected to draw hundreds of Latinos in the Los Angeles area for a night of remembrance and community empowerment. Several BIENESTAR clients will also speak to the attendees about their experience living with HIV and of their hopes to defeat the disease.

"This year's World AIDS Day is focused on keeping the promise to eradicate this disease. For those of us that work with communities of color whom are disproportionately affected by HIV, keeping the promise means empowering our very own community so that they become our partners in our fight against the epidemic," said Oscar De La O, President and CEO of BIENESTAR.

A quarter of a century since the discovery of AIDS, every part of the world has been affected by the epidemic. Today, an estimated 3 million people in North and South America are waging their own struggle against the disease. Latinos represent one of every five new HIV cases in the United States and represent about 48% of newly diagnosed AIDS cases in Los Angeles County. With AIDS being the leading cause of death due to disease among male Latinos ages 24-44 in the Unities States, a focus on the Latino population as part of this world wide epidemic is necessary.

Placita Olvera
Our lady Queen of Angeles Church
535 N. Main St. Los Angeles, CA 90012
December 1st 6:30-9:30pm

BIENESTAR is committed to enhancing the health and well-being of the Latino community and other underserved communities. BIENESTAR accomplishes this through community education, prevention, mobilization, advocacy and the provision of direct social services. For more information visit www.bienestar.org
Source: BIENESTAR
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/22aids.html

Published: November 22, 2006
AIDS Is on the Rise Worldwide, U.N. Finds
By Lawrence K. Altman

The AIDS pandemic is growing in all areas of the world, with worrisome signs of resurgence in some countries that were trumpeted as successes in combating the disease, the United Nations said yesterday.

At the same time, the prevalence of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, among young people has declined in eight countries in Africa, showing that prevention efforts can work, United Nations officials said.

“Even limited resources can give high returns when investments are focused on reaching people most at risk and adapted to changing national epidemics,” said Dr. Paul De Lay of the United Nations AIDS program, known as Unaids.

But over all, prevention efforts have reached far too few people at risk, like gay men, prostitutes, injecting drug users and members of minority groups, Dr. De Lay said in a telephone news conference from Geneva. He was commenting on a report issued yesterday by his agency and the World Health Organization, also a United Nations unit. Both have headquarters in Geneva.

An estimated 39.5 million people are now living with H.I.V., the report said. Of that total, 4.3 million became infected this year. There have been 2.9 million AIDS deaths in 2006, the highest number reported in any year.

The comparable figures in 2004 were 36.9 million living with H.I.V., 3.9 million new infections and 2.7 million deaths.

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, infection rates have risen by more than 50 percent since 2004.

The AIDS pandemic is a series of epidemics involving different groups at high risk like prostitutes, drug users and gay men. Because different groups may become infected at different rates and stages of the epidemic, each country needs to know its situation.

But precise statistics are not available, because many countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa lack adequate disease surveillance systems, the officials said. Those countries’ health systems lack sufficient trained workers, laboratories, supply systems and money to keep H.I.V.-infected people alive.

Nevertheless, “these estimates are amongst the most robust for any disease of global public health importance,” said Dr. Kevin De Cock, the World Health Organization’s chief AIDS official.

The global death total would be even higher without the efforts undertaken in recent years to provide antiretroviral therapy to hundreds of thousands of AIDS patients in poor countries, Dr. De Cock said. Still, he said, such drug therapy has not reached enough poor people to match the degree of decline in death rates seen in wealthy countries.

Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of Unaids, said that “countries are not moving at the same speed as their epidemics.”

Without rapid improvements, the pandemic will only worsen, the officials said. The United Nations cited Uganda as a country where the infection rate has shown resurgence after being on the decline.

Surveys conducted in 2000 and 2005 show that the rise there appears to have resulted from increasingly erratic condom use and an increased number of men who had sex with more than one partner in the previous year. Also, there are signs of an increased H.I.V. prevalence in some of Uganda’s rural areas.

Cause for concern was also found in Thailand. Despite a falling overall H.I.V. infection rate there, a large percentage of new infections are among people previously considered at low risk, Dr. De Lay said. “A third of all new infections are among married women,” he said.

Infection rates in the United States and Western European countries, including England, seem to show a decline in the intensity of prevention efforts, the officials said. The number of new infections in the United States has remained stable at 40,000 for about a decade.

That rate “is not good news,” said Karen Stanecki, a senior epidemiologist at Unaids. She said the United Nations had “highlighted” those wealthy countries “because we feel they are places where prevention programs should be more focused to stop all the new infections that are occurring.”

But the officials said they were encouraged by new data showing declines in H.I.V. prevalence among young people from 2000 to 2005 in eight African countries: Botswana, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

The trends were not sufficiently strong nor widespread to lower the overall impact of AIDS in Africa.

The report also said that in China some programs that focused on sex workers had led to marked increases in condom use and decreases in rates of sexually transmitted infections. Also, programs for injecting drug users have shown progress in some areas.

In Portugal, new H.I.V. infections among injecting drug users declined after the introduction of special prevention programs focused on H.I.V. and drug use.

Many babies have not benefited from efforts to scale up distribution of antiretroviral drugs in Africa. Dr. De Cock said studies were needed to directly measure the effectiveness of such therapy on child survival and the death rates of children in poor areas.

Strong efforts are needed to improve the detection and treatment of tuberculosis as part of efforts to treat AIDS in poor countries, Dr. De Cock said.

Although countries, private foundations and individuals have contributed billions of dollars to improve H.I.V. treatment in poor countries, health workers cannot assume that such donations will always continue, Dr. De Cock said. “We face a great responsibility to show further impact in coming years,” he said.

The report is available on the organizations’ Web sites: www.unaids.org and www.who.int

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http://www.workers.org/2006/us/native-immigration-1130/

Published Nov 22, 2006 12:34 AM
A Native view of immigration
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The following talk was given by Mahtowin Munro, a member of the Lakota Nation and co-leader of United American Indians of New England (UAINE), at a Nov. 18 Boston Workers World Party forum entitled “The Struggle for Indigenous sovereignty and immigrant rights.”
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I am going to be talking about immigration tonight from a North American Native viewpoint. Many of us who are Native to this country have been outraged as our sisters and brothers from Mexico, Central America and South America have come under increasing attack by the right wing. We are deeply alarmed by the existence of white vigilante groups such as the Minutemen, and by the stated intention of the U.S. government to build a wall separating the U.S. from Mexico.

As Indigenous peoples, we have no borders. We know that our sisters and brothers from Mexico, Central America and South America have always been here and always will be.

The immigrant nation that is the U.S. has a short memory and is in denial of its historical facts. This government is descended from immigrants who came here and took our lands and resources, either by force, coercion or dishonesty, and banned the religions, languages and cultures of the original Indigenous peoples of this continent.

In the various discussions of so-called “illegal immigrants,” one historical fact is always overlooked: America’s own holocaust directed against African and Native people, carried out by uninvited foreigners who came to these shores and took everything they could. Surely the deaths of tens of millions of Native and African people at the hands of marauding, manipulative European immigrants during a 400-year span should be worth bearing in mind.

U.S. history brims over with brutal, bloody instances of inhuman European immigrant actions that are far removed from the basic aspirations so often associated with today’s immigrants. The undocumented workers today in this country dream of a better life and seek to escape the poverty and repression engendered by U.S. imperialism. Unlike the earlier immigrants and the perpetual forces they set into motion, I highly doubt that today’s immigrants are plotting to seize others’ property, kill babies and earn bounties based on body parts brought back from raids.

Consider that, in the late 1630s, the British wiped out nearly every man, woman and child of the powerful Pequot tribe of southern New England in retaliation for conflicts arising out of fur-trade struggles. A few years later, Dutch authorities in charge of the settlement of “New Netherland” on the island of Manhattan carried out nighttime raids against the local Indigenous people, where infants were torn from their mothers’ breasts and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents. Legislation approved in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England in the 1700s authorized bounty payments for scalps or heads of Indians, young and old.

As it turns out, the immigrant authorities were just beginning their efforts to obliterate “the savages,” as American history chronicles.

Some of the best-known names in American history are dripping with prejudice and arrogance aimed at Native people. Not only did Thomas Jefferson—a holder of hundreds of Black men, women, and children—live a life of ease on his great plantation as a result of that slave labor. He also was convinced that the best solution in dealing with Native peoples was to drive all of us west of the Mississippi.

The war-hero president, Andrew Jackson, was one of the most despicable Indian-haters on record. He made no bones about his racism and championed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced the Cherokee and other southeastern Native peoples from their homes and caused thousands of them to die on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.

The 19th century in particular is rife with accounts of the foreign intruders’ invasions of Indian country, especially in the Southeast and West, and the carnage that resulted. The December 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee of over 300 unarmed Lakota children, women and men by the U.S. Army is perhaps the best-known of what were countless massacres carried out by the immigrants and their army.

The wholesale abuse of Native peoples continues to this day, and it springs from the same destructive capitalist practices that were brought here by foreigners long ago.

As I listen to some people call other people “illegal” immigrants, I often wonder: How could it possibly be that their ancestors were considered to be “legal” while so many immigrants now are considered “illegal”?

These comparisons between past and present miss a crucial point. So few restrictions existed on immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries that there was no such thing as “illegal immigration.”

For instance, the government excluded less than 1 percent of the 25 million European immigrants who landed at Ellis Island before World War I, and those mostly for health reasons.

We begin with a simple fact: We Native peoples had no immigration policies. When the Europeans began arriving and stealing our land from us and massacring our people, we did not have them take a citizenship test. We did not have them pass through Ellis Island. We did not have quotas for how many could come into the country. So, when did the U.S. begin to have immigration policies, and what were those policies?

For many years, whiteness was the prerequisite for citizenship. The first naturalization law in the United States, the 1790 Naturalization Act, restricted naturalization to “free white persons” of “good moral character” once they had resided in the country for a specified period of time.

The next significant change in the scope of naturalization law came following the Civil War in 1870 when the law was broadened to allow African Americans, whose ancestors had been forced to immigrate here in slave ships, to become naturalized citizens.

During the 1800s, male Chinese immigrants were excluded from citizenship but not from living in the United States, because their labor was needed by the big railroads. Female Chinese immigration was severely curtailed. Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was a virtual ban on further Chinese immigration. The Chinese immigration ban was not repealed until the 1940s. In the early 1900s, Japanese immigration was limited as well, but the Japanese government continued to give passports to the Territory of Hawaii, where many Japanese resided. (At that time, Hawaii was not yet a U.S. state.) Once in Hawaii, it was easy for Japanese to continue on to settlements on the West Coast, if they so desired.

An 1882 law banned the entry of “lunatics” and infectious disease carriers. After President William McKinley was assassinated by a second-generation immigrant anarchist, Congress enacted in 1901 the Anarchist Exclusion Act to exclude known anarchist agitators. A literacy requirement was added in the Immigration Act of 1917.

During the 1920s, the U.S. Congress established national quotas on immigration. The quotas were based on the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were already living in the United States.

In 1924, the Johnson-Reid Immigration Act limited the numbers of southern European immigrants. Italians were considered not “white” enough and an anarchist menace. The numbers of Eastern Europeans were also limited because Jews, who made up a large part of those leaving that area, were not “white” enough and were considered to be a Bolshevik menace.

I should mention that we Native people were “naturalized” and “granted” citizenship by the U.S. government in 1924.

In 1932 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the State Department essentially shut down immigration during the Great Depression.

In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act revised the quota system again. This act removed overt racial barriers to citizenship but solidified inequalities. Most of the quota allocation went to immigrants from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany who already had relatives in the United States.
This law was also particularly aimed at preventing socialist, communist or other progressive immigrants from entering the country. The anti-”subversive” features of this law are still in force.

During all these years, the entire Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, was exempted from immigration regulations. That changed in 1965 with the Hart-Cellar Act, which abolished the system of national-origin quotas.

A last-minute political compromise introduced, for the very first time, quotas for Mexico and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. This law racialized “illegal aliens.” A hierarchy of those deemed worthy and those deemed unworthy of becoming an “American” became increasingly deeply rooted.

Several pieces of legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 marked a turn towards harsher policies for both legal and “illegal” immigrants. These acts vastly increased the categories for which immigrants, including green card holders, can be deported. As a result, well over 1 million individuals have been deported since 1996.

In short, the notion of “illegal aliens” is a construct, an invention of the racist U.S. ruling class. The dominant powers for centuries codified Indigenous, African, Chinese and other people as essentially not “American.” The revolting use of the word “illegal” as a noun is a linguistic way of dehumanizing people and reducing individuals to their alleged infractions against the law.

I do not have time tonight to discuss the details of the economic and social conditions created by U.S. imperialism and neoliberalism that have forced our sisters and brothers from Mexico and many other countries to come to the U.S.

The United States is the true culprit in this situation through the robbery of the Mexican people, which began with the theft of their land and has continued with economic policies like NAFTA, which have destroyed the economy that sustained thousands of families, forcing them into exile and particularly into emigrating to the U.S.

As an aside, I want to explain what I mean when I say that the U.S. government stole land from the Mexican people, because this is rarely discussed in school or anywhere else. First of all, the land of course belongs rightfully to Indigenous peoples. Later, the various colonial governments claimed territory.

The “Mexican Cession” is a historical name for the region of the present-day southwestern United States that was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War. The cession of this territory from Mexico was a condition for the end of the war, as U.S. troops occupied Mexico City and Mexico risked being completely annexed by the U.S.

The United States also paid the paltry sum of $15 million for the land, which was the same amount it had offered for the land prior to the war. Under great duress, Mexico was forced to accept the offer.

The region of the 1848 “Mexican Cession” includes all of the present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah, as well as portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Note that the United States had already claimed the huge area of Texas in its Texas Annexation of 1845.

So we see that the U.S. literally stole millions of acres of land from the Mexican people, then established arbitrary borders such as the Rio Grande, and now hunts down those who dare to cross those borders.

The U.S. government has now escalated its war against the Mexican people, whether they are in Mexico or in its Diaspora, by approving $2.2 billion to begin construction of what is to be a $6 billion apartheid wall between the two countries.

At the same time, massive raids are being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. In cities across the country, ICE is trying to push immigrant workers further underground and scare them away from organizing and fighting for their rights.

Local and state governments, most notably in Pennsylvania and Arizona, have been passing vicious anti-immigrant legislation. I just read on the Internet the other night that the Bush administration and the Justice Department now claim the right to hold any non-U.S. citizen indefinitely, without the right to a trial in a civilian court.

In recent years, we have also seen how attacks against even documented immigrants, particularly Muslims, have been carried out under the guise of “homeland security.”

So all in all, there is a calculated attempt to create a thoroughly intimidating and threatening climate for immigrant workers, especially the undocumented.

Further, racists continue to push their “English-only” campaigns and to oppose bilingual education. I feel outraged by these “English-only” campaigns. Is English the Native language of this country? Generations of Native people were beaten for speaking their Indigenous languages and forced to learn English. Instead of English-only, maybe we should be insisting that people speak Mayan or Cherokee or Wampanoag.

Well, things were looking pretty bleak for a while. It had appeared that the capitalist ruling class and its representatives in the U.S. government had the upper hand completely, and that the mass struggle was dormant.

But then came the magnificent immigrant rights demonstrations of last spring. These were led by workers from Mexico and Central America and South America, but they were joined by Caribbean, Asian, African and other allies. This development shook the ruling class. It frightened and deeply worried them. It gave a glimpse, even in the midst of periods of reaction, of the crucial struggles that are on the horizon.

Step by step, day by day, this movement will grow. The government can pass anti-immigrant laws but those laws will be repealed in the streets. It was the earlier heroic struggles of immigrants in the U.S. that led to the historic International Women’s Day as well as May Day. Without a doubt, immigrants will make that kind of history again.

Let’s ask some basic questions here: Why does the U.S. need immigrant workers? This country depends on immigrants being the most exploited workers, the ones who work in sweatshops and keep the luxury hotels running.

Without immigrant labor, the economy would collapse. So why the witch hunt? To drive immigrants further underground and to manipulate this reserve army of labor. The corporations want to super-exploit immigrant workers. They just don’t want to be responsible for paying them the value of their labor or for providing benefits, services and basic democratic rights.

The corporations and the government are using the anti-immigrant legislation to mask the truth about the crisis looming for U.S. workers and the huge financial debt of the government.

This criminalization is also aimed at the rising tide of change developing throughout Latin and South America, from Venezuela to Oaxaca and Chiapas, a tide of resistance like that of the people of Cuba to U.S. global policies.

Capitalism thrives on the scapegoating of certain groups of people, which they use to try and divide us as workers. They want to keep us divided amongst each other because they want to prevent us from uniting to fight back against their bloody-handed system.

This is not the first time that immigrants have been scapegoated. Irish immigrants of the mid-1800s were vilified. During the 1800s, Chinese workers in the western part of the U.S. were subject to the most virulent racism, including lynching, and endured the most brutal working conditions.

From World War I until the 1920s, the government conducted anti-Jewish and anti-Italian reactionary attacks, including the Palmer Raids. Former President Theodore Roosevelt and many other prominent citizens of his era proclaimed their fears that the Anglo-Saxon was an endangered species due to immigration and to higher birth rates among the immigrants.

On the West Coast, Japanese immigrants were interned in concentration camps during World War II, and there were widespread police attacks on Chican@ youth in California during the same era.

The current attacks against immigrants must be seen as attacks on all workers. This current assault on immigrants is just another tactic—like racism, homophobia and sexism—that the ruling class uses to pit workers against each other. The only winners when this happens are the bosses.

Native people have dealt for centuries with the terrorism of the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and other colonizing governments. I urge all of you here tonight to consider the knowledge that we have gained during that time. If we had unified early on, worked together rather than as separate nations, we may have prevailed and pushed the Europeans right back into the Atlantic Ocean.

When we unite struggles, when we build a movement, we must have sensitivity for each other’s struggles. We must respect the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations. That means, for example, that only Indigenous peoples can decide what our goals are in the struggle and how we should best fight to achieve those goals. But others can help and support us while having respect for our leadership, and this is what happens at National Day of Mourning. And we cannot subordinate the fight against racism to any other struggle. That is at least in part why today’s antiwar summit in Harlem is so important.

At the same time, while we are involved in the struggle, we learn about each other, and learn to trust each other, and become internationalist in our outlook.

That is the kind of unity perspective we will bring to the streets on December 1. That is the kind of unity perspective that we bring to the antiwar movement—and I want everyone now to mark the date of March 17 in your brain, because that will be an international day of action for the fourth anniversary of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq.

The things we seek, such as self-determination and sovereignty for the oppressed, an end to killer cops and racism and war and the oppression of LGBTQ people, full rights for disabled people, jobs and education, can never be fully realized under capitalism, a system that is centered on exploiting people and resources and making a profit.

Reforms help a little, but we need a whole lot more than reforms. We don’t need a little less police brutality; we must put an end to it! We don’t need a little more money in our minimum wage paychecks; we need a living wage, and free healthcare, and affordable housing for all! Youth and students shouldn’t have to join the Army to be all that they can be; they need a real future! Rather than reforms, what we need is to commit ourselves to making a revolution together!

We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by the elections. We have been told for decades that we must put our faith in the bourgeois elections and in the Democratic Party, which supposedly will show us the kinder, gentler face of capitalism.

Didn’t the Democrats vote for this war, and all the other wars? Wasn’t it Bill Clinton and the other Democrats who happily gutted programs such as welfare, food stamps, college education grants and so many others?

Have the Democrats freed Mumia Abu-Jamal or Leonard Peltier? The Democrats represent the same class interests of the big bosses and corporations as the Republicans do. Regardless of who has won an election, millions around the world will continue to live in misery because of U.S. imperialism.

And if we really want a revolution, the history of Chile and other countries has taught us clearly that the ruling class will never just quietly give up power based on elections; at some point, there’s going to be a fight.

The Democrats and Republicans alike have both feet squarely planted in the luxury liner of the big corporations and the filthy rich. I can picture them, out on their fancy cruise ship, living the high life, drinking champagne and eating oysters.

Meanwhile, all us poor and working and oppressed people are in a simple birch-bark canoe together. We look over, and we can see that their ship is named the Titanic. We know it is going to sink, baby. When they get little leaky holes in their ship, the rich get afraid and desperate, and throw more and more stones to try and sink our canoe.

Now, our bark canoe may not be as fancy as the Titanic, but it is sturdy, we have really made it well, and there is room for all of us on it. Every now and then, somebody tries to have one foot in the Titanic, and one foot in the canoe. The boats go their separate ways, and that person falls into the water and drowns. We all have to choose one boat or the other, the Titanic or the canoe. Which one will you choose?

Sisters and brothers, the map of the world is colored with the patterns of our ancestors’ spilled blood. I believe that someday we can make a new map of the world together, a map that does not have borders among workers. Ultimately we will take back everything that is rightfully ours, everything that was stolen from us and built by the blood and sweat of our ancestors.

But in order to do that, we must be highly organized and have a plan of action, because the ruling class knows perfectly well how to join ranks against us. What is required is a new movement of unity, solidarity and resistance in all parts of the world. Workers World Party is and will continue to be in the forefront of that new movement and we invite you to join us.

Our future, and the very future of our Mother Earth, requires us to struggle toward a socialist future. The threats to life in this country and around the globe demand from all of us a new way of thinking, acting and being. We must come together in unity to fight against this vicious government and the corporations that control it. Together, we can build a new movement, the likes of which this country has never seen before!

Sisters and brothers, this is OUR world. Let’s work together to take it back!

Free Leonard! Free Mumia! Ho!

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