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By admin, November 29, 2009 11:14 pm

Conflict minerals: A cover for U.S. allies and Western mining interests?

by Kambale Musavuli and Bodia Macharia

http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/conflict-minerals-a-cover-for-u-s-allies-and-western-mining-interests/

November 27, 2009

The caption for this photo, illustrating a story headlined “African advocates say Canada owes Congo” on the Vancouver, Canada-based Straight-com, reads, “Women are in constant danger in Eastern Congo, where most of the recent fighting has taken place and rape is widespread.” The story, quoting two Congolese now in Canada, attributes the violence not to tribal conflict but to “a war of resources … a war of cellphones” but is divided over whether Canada should intervene militarily. – Photo: Dominic Nahr, MSF

As global awareness grows around the Congo and the silence is finally being broken on the current and historic exploitation of Black people in the heart of Africa, a myriad of Western based “prescriptions” are being proffered. Most of these prescriptions are devoid of social, political, economic and historical context and are marked by remarkable omissions. The conflict mineral approach or efforts emanating from the United States and Europe are no exception to this symptomatic approach which serves more to perpetuate the root causes of Congo’s challenges than to resolve them.

The conflict mineral approach has an obsessive focus on the FDLR and other rebel groups while scant attention is paid to Uganda, which has an International Court of Justice ruling against it for looting and crimes against humanity in the Congo, and Rwanda, whose role in the perpetuation of the conflict and looting of Congo is well documented by U.N. reports and international arrest warrants for its top officials.

Rwanda is the main transit point for minerals stolen from the Congo irrespective of the rebel group – FDLR, CNDP or others – transporting the minerals. According to Dow Jones, Rwanda’s mining sector output grew 20 percent in 2008 from the year earlier due to increased export volumes of tungsten, cassiterite and coltan, the country’s three leading minerals with which Rwanda is not well endowed.

In fact, should Rwanda continue to pilfer Congo’s minerals, its annual mineral export revenues are expected to reach $200 million by 2010. Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen says it best when he notes, “(H)aving controlled the Kivu provinces for 12 years, Rwanda will not relinquish access to resources that constitute a significant percentage of its gross national product.” As long as the West continues to give the Kagame regime carte blanche, the conflict and instability will endure.

According to Global Witness’ 2009 report, “Faced With a Gun What Can You Do,” Congolese government statistics and reports by the Group of Experts and NGOs, Rwanda is one of the main conduits for illicit minerals leaving the Congo. It is amazing that proponents of the conflict mineral approach shout loudly about making sure that the trade in minerals does not benefit armed groups, yet the biggest armed beneficiary of Congo’s minerals is the Rwandan regime headed by Paul Kagame. Nonetheless, the conflict mineral approach is remarkably silent about Rwanda’s complicity in the fueling of the conflict in the Congo and the fleecing of Congo’s riches.

When this Gecamines open pit copper mine in Katanga, one of the world’s largest, and others like it shut down during Congo’s civil war, Congolese continued mining for their own benefit. The miners rebelled when the company tried to expel them. State-owned Gecamines was until recently headed by Canadian Paul Fortin. – Photo: David Lewis, Reuters

Advocates of the conflict mineral approach would be far more credible if they had ever called for any kind of pressure whatsoever on mining companies that are directly involved in either fueling the conflict or exploiting the Congolese people. The United Nations, the Congolese Parliament, the Carter Center, Southern Africa Resource Watch and several other NGOs have documented corporations that have pilfered Congo’s wealth and contributed to the perpetuation of the conflict. These companies include but are not limited to Traxys, OM Group, Blattner Elwyn Group, Freeport McMoran, Eagle Wings/Trinitech, Lundin, Kemet, Banro, AngloGold Ashanti, Anvil Mining, and First Quantum.

The conflict mineral approach, like the Blood Diamond campaign from which it draws its inspiration, is silent on the question of resource sovereignty which has been a central question in the geo-strategic battle for Congo’s mineral wealth. It was over this question of resource sovereignty that the West assassinated Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, and stifled the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people for over three decades by installing and backing the dictator Joseph Mobutu.

In addition, the United States also backed the 1996 and 1998 invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda instead of supporting the non-violent, pro-democracy forces inside the Congo. Unfortunately and to the chagrin of the Congolese people, some of the strongest advocates of the conflict mineral approach are former Clinton administration officials who supported the invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda. This may in part explain the militaristic underbelly of the conflict mineral approach, which has as its so-called second step a comprehensive counterinsurgency.

The focus on the East of Congo falls in line with the long-held obsession by some advocates in Washington who incessantly push for the balkanization of the Congo. Their focus on “Eastern Congo” is inadequate and does not fully take into account the nature and scope of the dynamics in the entire country. Political decisions in Kinshasa, the capital in the West, have a direct impact on the events that unfold in the East of Congo and are central to any durable solutions.

The central claim of the conflict mineral approach is to bring an end to the conflict; however, the conflict can plausibly be brought to an end much quicker through diplomatic and political means. The so-called blood mineral route is not the quickest way to end the conflict.

We have already seen how quickly world pressure can work with the sidelining of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the demobilization and/or rearranging of his CNDP rebel group in January 2009, as a result of global pressure placed on the CNDP’s sponsor, Paul Kagame of Rwanda. More pressure needs to be placed on leaders such as Kagame and Uganda’s Museveni, who have been at the root of the conflict since 1996.

The FDLR can readily be pressured as well, especially with most of their political leadership residing in the West; however, this should be done within a political framework, which brings all the players to the table, as opposed to the current militaristic, dichotomous, good-guy-bad-guy approach, where the West sees Kagame and Museveni as the “good guys” and everyone else as bad. The picture is far grayer than Black and White.

A robust political approach by the global community would entail the following prescriptions:

1. Join Sweden and Netherlands in pressuring Rwanda to be a partner for peace and a stabilizing presence in the region. The United States and Great Britain in particular should apply more pressure on their allies Rwanda and Uganda to the point of withholding aid if necessary.

2. Hold to account companies and individuals through sanctions on trafficking in minerals whether with rebel groups or neighboring countries, particularly Rwanda and Uganda. Canada has chimed in as well but has been deadly silent on the exploitative practices of its mining companies in the Congo. Canada must do more to hold its mining companies accountable as is called for in Bill C-300.

3. Encourage world leaders to be more engaged diplomatically and place a higher priority on what is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II.

4. Reject the militarization of the Great Lakes region represented by AFRICOM, which has already resulted in the suffering of civilian population; the strengthening of authoritarian figures such as Uganda’s Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, and Rwanda’s Kagame, who won the 2003 “elections” with 95 percent of the vote; and the restriction of political space in their countries.

5. Demand that the Obama administration engage differently from its current military-laden approach and take the lead in pursuing an aggressive diplomatic path with an emphasis on pursuing a regional political framework that can lead to lasting peace and stability.

To learn more about the current crisis in the Congo, visit www.friendsofthecongo.org and join the global movement in support of the people of the Congo at www.congoweek.org.

Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at kambale@friendsofthecongo.org. Bodia Macharia is the president of Friends of the Congo/ Canada. She can be reached at bodia@friendsofthecongo.org.

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By admin, November 29, 2009 11:38 am

Aristide party barred from Haiti’s February ballot

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – The political party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide will be barred from legislative elections scheduled for February 28, Haitian elections officials said on Wednesday.

The decision drew immediate criticism from Aristide, a onetime populist hero in Haiti who was ousted in an armed rebellion in 2004. From his exile in South Africa, he asked whether elections officials were trying “to organize an election or to make a selection.”

Aristide is a former Roman Catholic priest who became Haiti’s first freely elected president in 1991 and won a second election in 2000. His Lavalas Family party is still considered the most popular political force in the impoverished Caribbean nation of 9 million people.

“The Lavalas Family party will not be allowed to participate in the next election because the electoral council’s legal counsel said the party did not meet all legal requirements,” electoral council president Gaillot Dorsainvil told local radio stations.

He did not specify which requirements the party failed to meet.

Ninety-eight of the 99 seats in the legislature’s Chamber of Deputies will be at stake in the February election, along with one-third of the 30-member Senate. The vote for the remaining lower house seat will be held at a later date.

Aristide faced accusations of corruption and despotism when he was forced from power in February 2004 during a bloody armed rebellion and under U.S. and French pressure to quit.

Sources close to the electoral council told Reuters the decision to bar the party was motivated by suspicions that the signature on a faxed letter sent by Aristide, authorizing local representatives to register the party, was falsified.

Last week, the council asked Lavalas Family official Maryse Narcisse to provide the original of Aristide’s letter. It was handed over to election officials, who then decided to bar the party.

In a rare interview, Aristide confirmed on local Radio Solidarity on Wednesday that he had given authority to Narcisse to register the party, and questioned whether Haitian officials wanted to hold fair and democratic elections.

“That will depend on whether the electoral council wants to organize an election or to make a selection,” Aristide said by phone from South Africa. “If they want to organize elections, I encourage them. But if they want to make a selection I urge them not to take that path because it will not serve the country’s interests.”

Lavalas Family was barred from previous elections over alleged failures to meet legal requirements.

Aristide’s allies accused election officials of dismissing their party in order to favor a new coalition close to President Rene Preval. The group, called “Unity,” replaced Preval’s dissolved “Lespwa” coalition.

“Our decision has no political motivations,” Dorsainvil said. “It is based on requirements of the electoral law.”

(Editing by Jim Loney

and Mohammad Zargham

)

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By admin, November 29, 2009 11:36 am

A Brief History of Freedom

COMMON SENSE

JOHN MAXWELL

Jamaica Observer – Sunday, November 29, 2009

This time last year I was in the throes of preparing to dispatch a petition to the then president-elect of the United States.

JOHN MAXWELL

The petition, or open letter, to Barack Obama was never sent, largely because I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and ordered to undergo treatment urgently. It was entirely my fault that though the petition had already been signed by a couple of hundred people it was never sent. Haitians, Jamaicans, other Caribbean people, English and American people, French people, Canadians and others from all over the world had endorsed the call for Barack Obama to seize the mantle of the Liberator and to restore to the people of Haiti their freedom, liberty, dignity and all their human rights. As I said, the letter was never sent. I wonder whether it would have had any effect had it been sent.

Looking at what has happened to Honduran democracy and this week’s latest farce in Haiti, I have my doubts. I am excerpting the letter here. What do you think? When the Haitians spoke of Freedom they did not qualify it. They named a major promenade after John Brown, and offered Lincoln a Union Army brigade to complete the service they had begun to render in the American War of Independence. In our letter to the president-elect we began by noting the coincidence of Mr Obama’s electoral victory in the bicentennial year of the end of the slave trade, an achievement owing much to the Haitian struggle. We continued:

We, the undersigned, are a group of people of many nations, of all classes and callings moved by what we consider an overwhelming moral imperative to seek assistance for Haiti in breaking a vicious circle of defamation, economic oppression, external political and military interference that has unjustly constrained, for nearly two centuries, the exercise of Haiti’s hard-won independence, freedom and liberty.

Because of these malign factors the Haitian people have been reduced to penury; most are unemployed, many are starving and their land and environment degraded by decades of over-exploitation. A proud people whose forefathers once produced enough to make other peoples wealthy and powerful, are now prevented from exercising their own free will and genius in deciding their own destiny.

Despite these factors the Haitian spirit remains free, undaunted and optimistic. The Haitians want to be free – to be themselves, to employ their own genius and strength as they did in their unique struggle for independence, defeating powers mightier than themselves to abolish slavery and to assert their independence and freedom.

Now, as they languish as prisoners in their own land, justice and humanity demand that the Haitian people should be able to reclaim the dignity and respect they have earned by centuries of their struggle for human rights and dignity for themselves and for other nations and peoples.

The circumstances surrounding this demand are so important and so extraordinary that we believe it is important to set them out in some detail.
This historical narrative included the following:

You are aware that 204 years ago the people of Haiti, having defeated the armies of France (twice) and of Britain and Spain, the greatest powers of that time, declared their independence and simultaneously abolished slavery. The Haitians were the first and only people in the world to abolish the evil system that enslaved them.

Their struggle effectively destroyed the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Africans and accelerated freedom for those enslaved in the British and other empires.
The Haitians did more: the Haitian Revolution invented the concept of universal emancipation, guaranteeing the freedom of any enslaved person who set foot on Haitian soil.

The Haitians went even further: Haiti was the first and, for a long time, the only state in the world to recognise the universal equality of rights for all human beings regardless of sex, economic condition or any other consideration. It was the first state to implement human rights universally and unconditionally at a time when the only free people in other modern states were white adult male property owners.

Human freedom was then and is now of transcendental importance to the Haitians.

In 1816, with their economy still in ruins after a 12-year war of independence, while blockaded by greater powers and prevented from international trade, the Haitians made a heroic and decisive contribution to the independence of six major countries in Spanish South America. Haiti gave the then-penniless and friendless liberator Simon Bolivar soldiers, ships, arms, ammunition and provisions to prosecute the liberation of South America. The Haitians asked in return only one thing from Bolivar: that whenever he liberated a country he should also liberate those who were enslaved.

It was the Haitian support of Bolivar in his liberation of South America which made possible the Monroe Doctrine by which the US forbade European attempts to recolonise South America.

Clearly, Haiti has made enormous contributions to the cause of human freedom and the world owes her an unpayable debt.

The world has not been as kind to Haiti.

After a brief review of the twentieth-century history of Haiti, we related how Haitian democracy had been destroyed by its enemies within Haiti and outside. First, in 1992:

“The new president’s (Jean Bertrand Aristide) aims were simple: that all Haitians be treated justly as God’s children, that all have food and shelter, and that all take pride in their own Kreyol language and culture. He said he wanted “to build Utopia on the dungheap” left behind by the dictators.

Elements of the Duvalier army, backed by elements of the business and elite classes, promoted a coup which ended with the attempted assassination and departure into exile of the lawfully elected President Aristide after only six months in office.

Mr Patrick Robinson, a distinguished Jamaican jurist (now president of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague) went to Haiti on behalf of the Inter American Human Rights Commission in 1994. He reported:

“The people in Haiti have the same emotions and aspirations as the citizens of any other state in the organisation. They have within themselves an enormous capacity for warmth and love and friendship and endurance and a great yearning for peace, justice and democracy. But a people do not endure the hardships, the deprivation, the violence, the victimisation and the enormous disappointments that the Haitians have experienced over the past 32 months without their faith in humanity and their expectations of decency and justice being challenged in a serious way.

“The Commission received reports of rape and sexual abuse of the wives and relatives of men who are active supporters of President Aristide; women are also raped, not only because of their relationship to men who support President Aristide, but because they also support President Aristide; thus, sexual abuse is used as an instrument of repression and political persecution.”

In 2001 former President Aristide was again inaugurated as president after another overwhelming electoral victory. A campaign, led by the same elements responsible for the first coup but this time directed and openly supported by various agencies of the US and Canadian and French governments, including the CIA, the State Department, John McCain’s International Republican Institute, USAID and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) , promoted the formation of a small and divided Opposition formed by an assemblage of Haitian NGOs and supported by elements of the corrupt army dissolved by President Aristide.

This opposition, on the basis of a few disputed election results unconnected to the election of the president and before he took office, refused to work or even speak to President Aristide to resolve political problems. The opposition, which at all times represented a small minority of the Haitian people, was supported by non-Haitian elements, American, Canadian and French, in their demand that President Aristide must leave office.

No substantive reason has ever been presented to support this demand.
Decapitating Democracy

In the early morning of February 29, 2004, the US ambassador and a party of US Marines arrived at the private residence of the president and his family and left with the president and Mme Aristide in a heavily guarded motorcade to the airport where the Aristides were placed on a plane to Africa, manifested as cargo.

A worldwide wave of disapproval of this kidnapping placed the blame squarely at the door of the United States.

A delegation led by Randall Robinson of TransAfrica and Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California together with Sharon Hay-Webster, a Jamaican member of parliament and aide to Prime Minister Patterson of Jamaica, travelled to Bangui by chartered plane to rescue the Aristides and bring them back to the Caribbean, to asylum in Jamaica.

The Government of Jamaica, despite being threatened by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, accepted the Aristides until they could arrange permanent asylum. They were received by President Thabo Mbeki to South Africa where they remain to this day.

The United States, Canada and France, operating through the UN Security Council, then imposed upon the Haitian people a government headed by a Haitian businessman who had lived outside of Haiti for most of his adult life.
Under this unelected regime, a so-called ‘peacekeeping” force of US Marines and later, of soldiers from other countries, provided the armed state power to maintain law and order.

Terror is still abroad in Haiti. Two prominent supporters of the Lavalas movement, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine and Maryse Narcisse, were kidnapped last year (2007). Mme Narcisse has been restored to her family after a worldwide outcry. Pierre Antoine is still missing and the government has done nothing to investigate his disappearance.

All over Haiti poor people have been reduced to eating earth to stave off hunger. The women mix clay, salt and a little fat to produce patties which are baked in the sun before being eaten. Women, too malnourished to breastfeed their newborns, watch them die in their arms.

What Haiti needs

Haiti needs, first of all, reconciliation, a period of peace and order and negotiation to reclaim its democracy and to develop among all its citizens a true respect for the universal human rights implemented in Haiti, for the first time on the planet, two centuries ago.

Haiti needs peace and order to build the institutions, facilities and infrastructure which it has been unable to build because of foreign interference and exploitation.

Haiti needs a programme of long-term development, designed and implemented by the Haitians themselves without interference from outside.

Haiti is hungry and its farmlands and forests have been depleted, degraded and destroyed as a result of the fatal interventions from abroad. Haiti needs assistance to feed its people and to restore the population to acceptable standards of nutrition.

Haiti needs to resume and accelerate its programme of building schools and universities and training people to prevail against the threat of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Haiti needs roads and water supplies and a governmental apparatus that will design and implement them.

Haiti should be able to expect, as of right, justice and fair treatment from the United Nations, the Organisation of American States and the Multilateral Financial Institutions. Haiti has suffered and is suffering from unfair treatment by many of these organisations of which she was a founding member.

Finally, President Obama, we who sign this letter do not presume to speak for Haiti. We believe that you will want to hear from the Haitian people themselves. They have spoken eloquently over the centuries in which they have built the economies of other countries, in which they have fought for and won their own freedom and have accelerated the freedom of others. But we believe we speak on behalf of humanity, being moved by the unbearable suffering of a people who have contributed so much to human freedom and dignity.

We believe that achieving justice for Haiti is an undertaking important to the history and integrity of human civilisation and to the cause of the human rights of all people, everywhere.

We believe that you are uniquely qualified by history, by temperament and by your office to make the decisive intervention that will cure centuries-old injustices and free your country and Haiti from an entanglement which devalues and in some ways, delegitimises humanity’s constant struggle for the secure establishment of the inalienable rights of mankind.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, humanity cannot be half-slave and half-free.
If Haiti is not free, none of us is free.

It is long past time for outsiders to stop their deadly interference in Haiti’s affairs and time for any who can come to Haiti’s assistance to do so, on Haiti’s terms. Haiti needs a new relationship with the United States, a partnership that promotes human rights, debt relief, reciprocal trade, sustainable development, Haiti’s domestic agriculture, an end to foreign occupation and justice for the victims of official terror.

This is a long letter, but as one of our signatories has noted, for Haiti, the suffering has not simply been long, but apparently endless.

We are confident that you will see the justice of the Haitian case.

Millions of people in the United States and in the Caribbean and Latin America and in Africa owe a debt of freedom to Haiti. It is a debt that is long past due.

Copyright©2009 John Maxwell
jankunnu@gmail.com

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By admin, November 27, 2009 12:12 pm

Against Blackface at U of T, Canada

View Current Signatures –   Sign the Petition

To:  People of Good Conscience PUBLIC STATEMENT
FROM FACULTY AND STUDENTS
CONDEMNING THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ADMINISTRATION�S
INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO THE �BLACKFACE� INCIDENT

On Tuesday, November 24, at public hearings before the Canadian Parliamentary Commission to Combat Anti-Semitism, Robert Steiner, Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications for the University of Toronto, informed those present that the University of Toronto administration had taken the lead in working with concerned students to organize and facilitate a public town hall meeting on a recent incident of �Blackface� at the university. As the students and faculty who organised and spoke at that town hall, we are appalled, angered and dismayed that Mr. Steiner has falsely represented the University�s role in the sequence of events that have ensued as a result of this �Blackface� incident.

Contrary to which Mr. Steiner has claimed, the university played no part whatsoever in organising the town hall event. In fact, even as Mr. Steiner was issuing his public comments, students and faculty were trying to get the University administration to issue a public statement affirming its commitment to equity on campus. Despite repeated requests to issue a statement the University has failed to do so. In light of Mr. Steiner�s comments we feel it is absolutely imperative that the university community and the wider public be made aware of the University�s true role in this serious breach of equity and trust on its own campus.

On Halloween night (29 October) five University of Toronto students dressed up in �costume� as the Hollywood version of the Jamaican bobsled team from the film Cool Runnings for a party hosted by three of the university’s colleges: St. Michael’s; University; and Victoria. Four of the students wore blackface as part of their �costumes�; the fifth wore a white painted face. When students on campus raised concerns, controversy arose concerning what was meant by the �costume.� Many students and faculty (including several who are not black) immediately recognized the “costumes” as blackface and voiced their collective dismay, given the long history of blackface performance and minstrelsy in demeaning black people and systematically caricaturing black cultures.

Members of the Black Students Association (BSA) approached those students and colleges involved to request a public apology. They also took the initiative to make the incident a �teachable� moment, bringing diverse constituencies together to learn about the historical and contemporary hurt and pain caused by enacting blackface. On November 10 the BSA, supported by the University of Toronto Student Union (UTSU), organized a town hall meeting that was attended by more than 300 people. After the meeting and in online discussions of media coverage of the event, both local and national, the BSA and its president have been victims of a disturbing backlash that has the cumulative effect of questioning the right of some students to claim full membership of the university community.

The university has failed to use its normal communicative channels to stand in support of the students who organized the town hall and who have faced intimidation following the event. The university’s dereliction of duty sent a message that black voices in our midst do not matter, or matter less than those of other groups who raise similarly serious concerns.

A meeting took place on November 19 in the office of the Vice-Provost, Students. Following a seemingly positive discussion, BSA and UTSU student representatives, as well as concerned faculty, expected that the university would distribute a public statement to address the issues raised in the meeting. To our surprise when an official response did arrive it was sent in the form of a private communication to the two students leaders and four faculty who had met with administrators. The letter’s recipients were asked to distribute the statement themselves to the wider university community. After a query as to whether this constituted the extent of the University’s response, we received an e-mail yesterday (November 24) informing us that the letter had been posted on the Equity web site and that of the Vice-Provost, Students-where it would likely never be accessed by the wider university community.

This piecemeal approach on the part of University Administrators is a serious failure of public leadership. As was made evident at the earlier town hall meeting and in subsequent meetings with senior administrators, the blackface incident is representative of much deeper issues and fissures on campus.

Typically, on matters of importance to the U of T community, senior administrators draw on a range of communicative strategies to reach the widest audience possible. The actions, or lack thereof, of the senior administration of the university suggest that black students are not equally valued members of the university community and that concerns about the alienation of other nonwhite students can be ignored and sidestepped. We refuse to accept such a position. We call on the senior administration to publicly affirm that our community is a safe place for producing knowledge, discussing ideas, and for building a multicultural and cosmopolitan community that becomes a genuinely global model of intercultural learning and academic excellence. We publicly commend University College for thus far being the only administrative unit in the University to issue a full public apology, and call on the administration and student councils of Victoria and St. Michael�s College to do the same. The University of Toronto belongs to us all, and that commitment-to value us equally in our diversity-needs to be publicly demonstrated and reiterated.

In light of this history Mr. Steiner�s comments represent the exploitation by the University of the pain of students who have felt targeted as a result of this �Blackface� incident and the hard work of courageous student organizers. It also represents a breach of trust with members of its own faculty who spoke at the event, none of whom was contacted by the university prior to the town hall of November 10. We demand a full public apology from Mr. Steiner and senior University administration for having exploited us all in this manner.

Daniella Kyei, University of Toronto Students� Union, Vice-President Equity
Dawn Samuel, President of the Black Students� Association
Sean Hawkins, Associate Professor of History
Melanie Newton, Associate Professor of History
Alissa Trotz, Associate Professor of Women�s and Gender Studies
Rinaldo Walcott, Associate Professor of Social Justice and Cultural Studies

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By ChairInternal, November 27, 2009 12:24 am

Chair Internal Speaks

Letters to the Editor

Re:Poor Haitian kids forced into slavery, Dec. 23

The reality of child slavery in Haiti cannot be separated from the economic and political priorities favoured by local elites, global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and powerful countries such as the United States, Canada and France.

There is a link between many of these enslaved children, who came from the countryside, and the crippling of Haitian agriculture through the importation of subsidized rice, beans, corn, pork and sugar. Up until the 1980s, Haiti was self-sufficient in food production. However, it has been forced to severely cut tariffs to subsidized imports. This globalization-induced policy has impoverished the rural people and enriched a small cluster of Haitian families who own most of the country’s wealth.

Haiti’s children are vulnerable to child slavery because access to education is a pipe dream for most. Only 67 per cent and 20 per cent of eligible-age children are enrolled in primary and secondary schools, respectively. School fees of $70-$80 (U.S.) per year in a country with a per capita GDP of $480 are a critical factor in the under 50 per cent enrolment rate. Only 10 per cent of primary and secondary schooling is delivered by the Haitian government to its citizens.

Should it come as a surprise that Haiti’s children are now the victims of child slavery, sex tourism and sexual improprieties by some NGO personnel and UN peacekeepers?

Ajamu Nangwaya, Toronto

Selective moral outrage reflects U.S. bias

Re: Thank you, Mia Farrow, Letter Nov. 8

The venal regime of Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan has certainly been a party to gross human rights violations in the Darfur region. Hopefully, the day will come when the Sudanese people will be able to justly “reward” President Al-Bashir for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and war crimes.

However, the singling out of Sudan is consistent with an inherent bias in U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. highlights the wrongdoings of its enemies and soft-pedals or ignores those of its allies and friends.

How would the unbiased friends of Darfur classify the Congo, with about 6 million deaths, more than 250,000 women raped, about 2 million internally displaced and an active and brutal war on civilians by all armed combatants?

I hope Ms. Farrow’s comrades-in-arms Ve’ahavta and the Canadian Jewish Congress will find the time to critique the role of Western mining companies and governments and neighbouring states in perpetuating Congo’s conflict. These erstwhile Canadian human rights friends should also call for an end to Israel’s economic blockade against and collective punishment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

When we are selective in our moral outrage against human rights violations, we unwittingly create the ethically untenable categories of deserving and undeserving victims.

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By ChairExternal, November 26, 2009 2:04 pm

** Hadeel by Rafeef Ziadah – Debut CD Launch Party **
Listen to Hadeel and purchase the CD at: www.rafeefziadah.ca
 
Friday November 27
Concord Café 937 Bloor ST W (Ossington subway station)
Doors open at 8pm, performances begin at 9pm
 
Rafeef Ziadah’s long-awaited debut spoken-word CD, Hadeel, is finally here! With audience favorites like “Baghdad” and “Shades of Anger” and new pieces like “Trail of Tears”, Hadeel has Rafeef’s powerful poetry set to original and haunting music. Come to the first launch party of Rafeef’s debut CD and celebrate this work by hearing it performed live! Enjoy a performance by the incredible Lal and dance to the beats of DJ No-Capitalista.
Rafeef Ziadah is a Palestinian spoken-word artist and activist. She received an Ontario Arts Council Grant from the ‘Word of Mouth’ program to create her debut album Hadeel.  Rafeef started performing poetry in Toronto in 2003 with the spoken word collective Pueblo Unido and is the winner of the 2007 Mayworks Festival Poetry Face-Off.  Rafeef’s poetry speaks to the struggle of immigrants to “make it to/in Canada ” and the politics of exile. Being Palestinian she reflects, in the CD, on the realities of her homeland today, a homeland to which is not allowed to return.
 
Hadeel was produced by Rafeef Ziadah and Rosina Kazi of Comeunity Center (comeunitycenter@gmail.com). Recorded and Engineered by Nicholas Murray. Musicians on the CD: Ian de Souza (bass), Reena Katz (violin/viola), Santosh Naidu (Percussions), Ritesh Das (Tabla), Karim Sultan (Oud), Ruben ‘Beny’ Esguerra (Percussions, gaita hembra flute), Joanna de Souza (Kathak Footwork).
 
The project was supported by Ontario Arts Council Word of Mouth Program.
To get in touch with Rafeef, be added to her mailing list or organize a performance please email rafeef@rafeefziadah.ca

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By ChairExternal, November 25, 2009 10:09 am

Call-out for a National Day of Action December 2, 2009 – Justice for Migrant Workers!

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By ChairExternal, November 23, 2009 12:04 pm

Urqent Request re: CIIT Witness

Moist’s Letter to Parliament’s Standing Committee on African Colombians, Urgent Request re: CIIT Witness

November 18, 2009

Honourable Lee Richardson
Chair, Standing Committee on International Trade
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A OA6

Dear Mr. Richardson:

Urqent Request re: CIIT Witness

CUPE is disturbed to learn that the North-South Institute’s request to have
Carlos Rosero of Proceso de Communidades Negras in Colombia testify on
November 19, 2009 to the Standing Committee on International Trade (CIIT) has been refused. It is our understanding that representatives of the Afro-Colombian community in Colombia have not yet taken part in these hearings, making this refusal even more problematic.

All of the documentation and reports that CUPE has reviewed supports the need to hear from the Afro-Colombian community. Afro-Colombians have suffered greatly from displacement from their traditional territories. Extensive documentation of para-military threats and violence needs to be examined in the context of the interests of extractive activities and other resource developments. CUPE representatives have witnessed first-hand the situation in Afro-Colombian communities on a number of occasions, from visiting threatened rural communities in the vast river systems on the Pacific coast to the large impoverished neighbourhoods of already displaced Afro-Colombians.

Our understanding is that Carlos Rosero is a specialist. in environmental and social , assessment and has extensive knowledge on the human rights situation of Afro-Colombians. It would be a serious mistake not to take the opportunity to hear from him. With such important decisions to be made it is it is imperative that a full range of views be canvassed. We are deeply concerned that this refusal to hear Mr. Rosero, while at the same time agreeing to hear from business organizations, points to a biased view among CIIT members.

We urge you to reconsider your position and invite Carlos Rosero to testify.

Yours truly,

PAUL MOIST
CUPE National President

cc: Dean Allison, Member of Parliament
Scott Brison, Member of Parliament
Ron Cannan, Member of Parliament
Claude Guimond, Member of Parliament
Richard M. Harris, Member of Parliament
Ed Holder, Member of Parliament
Peter Julian, Member of Parliament
Gerald Keddy, Member of Parliament
Mario Silva, Member of Parliament
Ann Weston, The North-South Institute
Meaghen Simms, The North-South Institute
Roy Culpeper, The North-South Institute
Viviene Weitzner, The North-South Institute
wl/cope 491

To contact Lee Richardson, please use the contact information below or complete the contact form at the bottom of this page.

CONSTITUENCY OFFICE
Suite 333, 1333 8th Street S.W.
Calgary, Alberta
T2R 1M6
Tel: (403) 244-1880
Fax: (403) 245-3468
e-mail: richal1@parl.gc.ca

PARLIAMENTARY OFFICE
432-C Centre Block
House of Commons
Ottawa,
Ontario
K1A 0A6
Tel: (613) 995-1561
Fax: (613) 995-1862
e-mail: richardson.l@parl.gc.ca

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By ChairExternal, November 23, 2009 2:39 am

rabble news

Union co-ops the future of labour?

| November 18, 2009

A new collaboration between North America’s largest industrial union and the world’s largest worker-owned co-operative has reinvigorated proponents of an alternative to top-down business models. Unions and co-ops also look to such partnerships as a way to strengthen their respective memberships.

In late October, the United Steel Workers (USW), which represents 1.2 million active and retired members in Canada and the United States, announced that it will collaborate with Mondragon Co-operative Corporation (MCC), a co-operative based in the Basque Country. While specific projects have yet to be identified, the collaboration would allow USW to test an alternative worker-ownership model to that of Employee Stocker Ownership Programs (ESOPs), citing that they have found their results “disappointing.” Mondragon, in return, can work with the union in order to lay the foundation for a North American membership, encouraging Steelworkers and their companies to become co-operatives and join the global Mondragon movement.

In a press release announcing the collaboration, the organizations state: “the goals of this collaboration are to develop and grow manufacturing jobs in the United States and Canada, to improve the quality of life of workers, and to create sustainable jobs in a sustainable economy that supports stronger communities and sustainable environmental practices” and “demonstrate that the Mondragon worker-ownership model can be highly effective as adapted to an organized workforce and North American culture.”

The announcement came on the heels of a push for worker-owned co-operatives by filmmaker Michael Moore. In his film Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore briefly highlights several successful worker-owned co-operatives, looking to their higher wages and democratic decision making as an exemplary alternative to what he terms the “totalitarian” corporate model. Moore extrapolates upon his love for such a model in a recent interview with Naomi Klein. “[I]f you believe in democracy, democracy can’t be being able to vote every two or four years. It has to be every part of every day of your life… But we spend…our daily lives at work, where we have no say.” Klein encourages Moore’s rhetoric, but worries that unions would be uninterested: “One of the biggest barriers I’ve found in my research around…co-operatives is not just government and companies being resistant to it but unions as well…. In most cases, particularly with larger unions, they have their script, and when a factory is being closed down their job is to get a big payout.” But Moore says that at the film’s premiere at the AFL-CIO convention earlier this year in the U.S., union members “cheered it…I think that unions at this point have been so beaten down, they’re open to some new thinking and some new ideas.

“People love this part of the film,” he continues. “I’ve been kind of surprised because I thought people aren’t…going to understand this or it seems too hippie-dippy — but it really has resonated with the audiences that I’ve seen it with.”

While Mondragon currently has only one holding North America (in North Little Rock, Arkansas), the co-operative movement is not new to the region. Currently, over 17,000,000 Canadians are co-operative members and the country’s co-operatives, credit unions and caisses populaire lay claim to $275 billion in assets.

Union-co-operative collaboration is also not a new phenomenon. According to Peter Kardas, Director of the Labor Education and Research Centre at the Evergreen State College, the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical labour union which hit its peak in the early 1920s and is known for its stance on abolishing a wage system and creating on a “worker class,” holds worker-owned co-operatives at the core of its ideals. “[Union-co-operative collaboration] has been around for a long time,” Kardas explains. “It was originally a socialist and communist and anarchist idea.” As backlash against radical union ideas increased, support for the co-op model lost steam, but has been re-invigorated as unions are faced with a weakening membership base and a weakening labour movement. The economic recession, resulting bail-out of big companies but not workers, and lost jobs across Canada and the U.S. has further spurred unions to re-think their approach.

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In the Oct. 27 press release, USW international president Leo W. Gerard states: “Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollow out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants. We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities [and] makes business accountable to Main Street instead of Wall Street.”

While USW has worked with ESOPs — a form of worker-ownership in which employees can eventually own shares of the company — Rob Witherell of the Steelworkers told Andrew McLeod of the blog “Cooperate and No One Gets Hurt,” “our ESOP experience soured us a little bit…By the time we were offered the opportunity to buy the shares the company was so financially strapped that it had a very small chance of success, and those that did succeed were usually bought out by some other investor…[E]ven earning those shares didn’t actually translate to any accountability to the workers or worker input. It really didn’t change the nature of the work in a lot of cases…”

Unlike ESOPs, Mondragon’s model encourages full employee ownership and is based on “one worker, one vote” philosophy, allowing for workers to steer the direction of the company.

The co-operative model could not only help to strengthen the voice of workers already unionized, but also increase the number of new members: USW could work to unionize newly-started North American Mondragon co-operatives, reaching out to those interested in worker-ownership but not necessarily part of the formal labour movement. Conversely, Mondragon would have access to USW workers, encouraging them to join the co-operative movement. “[Mondragon] ha(s) an interest in a North American presence and have [an] interest in developing a union worker-owner co-op model….That’s going to be more beneficial in the long run for our existing members, [and] a way to build our membership,” explains Witherell.

Since its beginnings in the Basque Country in 1956, Mondragon has bought other companies, particularly if they were threatening to compete with the operations of the MCC. In addition to its one U.S. holding, Mondragon currently has operations in 18 other countries outside of Spain, ranging from South Africa to Brazil to Germany. “They have a tremendous amount of money,” says Kardas. In 2008, Mondragon’s annual sales topped 16 billion euros from its co-operative university, bank and social security mutual. “They buy up these companies and then they convert them to Mondragon. It’s a corporation like any other corporation. They’re huge.” However, buying these companies does not necessarily translate into a greater co-op presence, as each worker has to pay to enter the co-operative: while workers are technically part of Mondragon, they often have few ideological ties to the worker-ownership model and therefore are not inclined to offer the significant amount of money necessary for worker buy-in. Witherell explains: “[Mondragon has] gone in and taken over a place and set up without finding out what the culture and ideas are from the beginning, [and] they have a hard time getting people to buy into being an owner. Because [the attitude is] ‘I’m a worker, I show up, I get paid and that’s all I have to do.’

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By ChairInternal, November 23, 2009 2:09 am

 Class Solidarity Campaign at the 2009 CUPE National Convention

Brother Ajamu courageously ran a campaign to open up the General Vice-President (GVP) seats to any CUPE member, as well as to bring the issue of class and class struggle into union politics. His electoral intervention struck a blow against the unwritten rule of reserving the GVP seats for the five divisional presidents.

These GVP positions are usually acclaimed on the convention floor. However, Brother Ajamu’s class solidarity-themed campaign forced an election on the convention floor and delegates from across Canada rewarded his principled effort with 40% of the votes.

Competitive, contested elections inside CUPE and the wider labour movement provide the opportunity for members to be exposed to different visions, strategies and tactics to achieve the emancipation of labour from capitalist, racist and sexist exploitation and domination. Hopefully, CUPE members’ reservation or fear of contesting these seats will be a thing of the past.

Brother Ajamu’s Campaign Leaflet for General Vice-President