The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.5           February 5, 1996 
 
 
In Brief  

Ecuador: workers occupy plants
Electrical workers have occupied seven power plants in Ecuador. On January 18 they threatened to leave the country's hydroelectric stations unattended if the government tries to intervene with troops. The workers took over the plants January 17 to protest a proposal to privatize energy production that could threaten their jobs.

Ecuadoran president Sixto Duran-Ballen declared a state of emergency, which authorizes the government to send troops into the occupied installations and limits the right of assembly. The workers are occupying one plant that supplies 75 percent of the country's electricity.

Burundi gov't: no UN troops
Representatives from imperialist countries in the United Nations Security Council debated sending an occupying force to Burundi, but have met resistance from Burundi government officials. "We want to keep United Nations troops away from our country," said Nsanze Terence, Burundi's representative to the United Nations.

Last year, a guerrilla group calling itself the Front for the Defense of Democracy launched raids into Burundi from Zaire. At least 10,000 people were massacred. The government of Burundi said the guerrillas were armed and backed by elements from the old Rwandan army. More than 100,000 people have been killed in three years of violence in Burundi, where bourgeois politicians are exploiting ethnic divisions to advance their competing interests.

Hard times ahead in Europe
"Not only will growth not be enough to reduce unemployment, it will be so low that unemployment will continue to go up." That's what Armin Sorg, senior director for economic policy at Seimens A.G. in Munich, Germany, told the New York Times. Sorg was commenting on the creeping recession hitting Europe, which already has an average unemployment rate of 10.6 percent - 17.5 million people.

The limp economies throughout Europe are threatening to derail the capitalists' economic plans, including the Maastricht Treaty, which calls for countries in the European Union to adopt a common currency and a central bank. "Maastricht is obsolete. Maastricht is dead," declared Jacques Calvet, chairman of the French car company Peugeot.

Shackles for pregnant inmates
Public outrage forced the British prison service to drop its policy of shackling pregnant women in the final hours before they give birth. The policy change came when the prisons minister, Anne Widdecombe, apologized to members of Parliament for erroneously claiming that Whittington hospital officials in London had not protested the barbaric practice. Hospital authorities had protested the policy on Aug. 31, 1995.

Another policy change could include instructing prison officials to maintain a guard outside the maternity ward once a woman goes into labor, instead of having the guard remain behind a screen, which is the current practice.

British miners win court battle
British coal miners won an important case when a judge in the High Court ruled January 15 that British Coal was negligent in dealing with a disease called Vibration White Finger. The disease also known as "dead hand," is caused by prolonged use of vibrating machinery and can cause permanent damage to nerves, muscles and bones in the finger.

Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers said the decision could result in miners receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The Manchester Guardian reported that the ruling is likely to lead to more than 100,000 claims by miners.

U.S. sanctions on Iraq cruel
United Nations officials said January 16 that the Iraqi government is prepared to discuss the imperialist-crafted plan that would allow the regime to sell $2 billion in controlled oil sales for six months. Baghdad had earlier rejected the conditions as a violation of its sovereignty.

Clinton administration officials have said any negotiations over the plan are out of the question. U N agencies have issued reports for more than a year stating that Iraqi civilians, especially children, are suffering from malnutrition and the effects of a medicine shortage due to the oil embargo imposed on the regime months before Washington's Persian Gulf slaughter of at least 150,000 Iraqis.

Cleric gets life in frame-up trial
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the 57-year-old blind Muslim cleric, was sentenced January 17 to life in prison for allegedly plotting to wage a "war of urban terrorism" that included plans to blow up the United Nations Building, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, and the main federal office building in Manhattan. Judge Michael Mukasey of the Federal District Court in Manhattan also gave prison terms to nine codefendants in the trial, ranging from 25 years to life.

"The judge said to the jury that no one is going to be tried here because of his beliefs, but the whole world came to know that I am being tried because of my beliefs and because I follow Islam," Rahman said at the trial. Rahman's lawyers maintain that he was framed by government informer Emad Salem, who was paid $1 million by the FBI and was the key witness in the case. Salem had admitted lying under oath in a previous trial.

Proof that Rahman "even knew about" any bombing plot "is scant," the Wall Street Journal reported in September, adding that federal conspiracy laws meant the jury could still convict him of "leading the supposed jihad or Islamic holy war."

In spite of the complete lack of evidence, Mukasey told the Egyptian cleric, "You were convicted of directing others to perform acts which, if accomplished would have resulted in the murder of hundreds if not thousands of people."

Prosecutors also tried to link the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to Rahman's trial. Neither the cleric, however, nor other defendants in this trial were charged in that explosion, which killed six people. Prosecutors called the four men who were railroaded for the Trade Center bombing coconspirators with Rahman and his nine codefendants.

Teen put on death row
An Arkansas jury sentenced 17-year-old Damond Sanford to the death chamber January 9, making him the youngest person on death row in that state. The judge set February 12 as the date for the state-sanctioned murder.

A psychologist who testified at the trial said that the youth, who was convicted of rape and murder, had borderline intelligence. Sanford argued at his trial that an accomplice fired the shots that killed the woman he was accused of murdering. The prosecutor in the case, Joe Wray, piously claimed that Sanford's age "concerned me" as he pushed for the death penalty.

Attacks on affirmative action
On his fourth day in office, Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster signed an executive order January 11 that would end affirmative action programs in the state government. Foster, whose main campaign issue was opposition to affirmative action, admitted that the executive order could not halt federally funded affirmative action programs nor those protected by state law. "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what impact it will have right now," Foster said.

In a cynical move, Foster proclaimed January 15 as a state holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. The governor said he believed King would have opposed affirmative action programs. "King sort of believed like I do on that," he said. "I can't find anywhere in his writings that he wanted reverse discrimination."

- MAURICE WILLIAMS

 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home