Meanwhile, Washington maintains a military force in south Korea that includes 37,000 troops stationed across the border.
Pakistanis demand wheat
Hundreds of Pakistanis, fed up by wheat shortages, stormed a
government warehouse April 6 in Peshawar. Cops beat protesters
back with sticks. On April 5, just a day before, thousands
overtook flour mills and halted trucks carrying wheat. Nearly
three weeks had passed since capitalists made wheat available
in Peshawar. Claiming a shortage, the government barred exports
of wheat to neighboring Afghanistan.
Romania truck plant workers strike against profit squeeze
Some 6,000 Romanian workers at the Roman truck plant in
Brasov went on strike to protest the lack of state subsidies to
the industry, and the bosses' attempts to sell off parts of the
factory. Strikers blocked off the main road to the capital city
of Bucharest during the second week of April.
Workers were responding to the Romanian government's plan to deepen its campaign of downsizing and "restructuring" to satisfy demands of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These imperialist financial institutions are also pressing for the liquidation of state-owned enterprises as conditions for loans. Bucharest has plans underway to get rid of ten state-run "loss makers," the Financial Times reported.
Among those on the chopping block are two refineries, a brewery, a textile plant, and others. Managers of these factories are scrambling to prove their profitability. The Craiova car plant is laying off workers for two weeks due to a sharp drop in sales.
Miners in Siberia win back pay
Miners in southern Siberia forced bosses to promise pay for
some of the back wages owed after their 16-hour protest action
shut down the Russian trans-Siberian railway April 9. The
miners set the railroad tracks ablaze near a southern Siberia
town called Kemerovo. Unrest is growing in Russia as workers
battle Moscow to pay their wages. Some 22,000 teachers are
striking for back wages, according to the teachers' union
there. In the northern city of Arkhangelsk, several dozen
thermal plant workers are waging a hunger strike for five
months back pay. In the Ural mountains, 300 workers building a
subway tunnel under the city of Yekaterinburg refused to return
to the surface - their last paycheck received was in November.
Belgian auto workers end strike
Auto workers at the Renault plant in Vilvoorde, Belgium,
decided to return to work April 10, after occupying the plant
for six weeks. Immediately after the vote, they went to the
Volvo factory in Ghent to hold another protest. Workers will
continue to occupy the Renault factory's parking lot, where
5,000 new cars sit, ready for sale.
The strike began right after Renault officials announced February 27 they would be closing the factory in July, leaving 3,100 people jobless. That decision by the auto bosses sparked a wave of protests, including a demonstration of 50,000 workers through Brussels.
Strikes barrage bosses in Italy
Workers in Italy have organized a barrage of labor actions
in April. Air traffic controllers in 11 Italian airports struck
April 7 for eight hours, affecting international flights. The
next day, electrical workers held a four-hour work stoppage in
protest of plans to privatize the state-run company, Enel.
Train engineers have called a 24-hour strike for April 19, and
ferry workers plan several days of strikes in the same week.
Prison rebellions rock Colombia
Inmates took over the prison in Velledupar, Colombia, April
3. They demanded freedom and safe passage out of Colombia and
seized 13 hostages. Over the past two months, prisoners in
Colombia have rebelled in at least eight prisons calling for
better conditions and an end to corruption. The Velledupar
penal facility, which houses 600 prisoners, was designed for
120 inmates.
Prisoners strike in Puerto Rico
Protesting the lack of medicine for ailing prisoners and
mistreatment of relatives who visit them, thousands of inmates
at Las Cucharas prison in Ponce, Puerto Rico, struck for a day.
The April 8 action was part of an island wide inmate strike.
Corrections administrator Zoe Laboy, denied accusations of
harassing visitors, but did not comment on the accessibility of
medicine for inmates. She claimed prisoners are treated
respectfully, but "I'm not going to lie, there are always
exceptions."
Clinton to apologize for syphilis study on 623 Black men
Mary Glynn, a White House spokeswoman, said April 8 that
U.S. president William Clinton will issue an apology on behalf
of the government for conducting a 40-year syphilis study on
623 Black men. The experiment was conducted from 1932 to 1972,
which had an aim of studying the effects of untreated syphilis.
For the 40-year duration of the experiment the men were never told they had syphilis, a disease that causes mental illness and death, and were never given the penicillin treatment - even after it became an standard treatment in 1947. Fred Gray, the attorney for victims who filed a lawsuit against the government, remarked, "To allow men to suffer and die in the name of science is insidious and vile." In an out-of-court settlement in 1974, the government paid $37,000 to each survivor of the study and $15,000 for the heirs - a paltry sum of $10 million to more than 6,000 people.
Florida court delays execution
The Florida Supreme Court postponed the April 15 execution
of Leo Jones, after the inmate appealed on the ground that
another prisoner, Pedro Medina, suffered horridly during his
state-sanctioned murder on March 25. A mask worn by Medina
caught fire, producing foot-long flames that scorched his scalp
and other parts of his body.
The court ruled April 12 that a hearing should be conducted to investigate the claim of "cruel and unusual punishment" since the March 25 electric chair fire was the second in recent years. In 1990, another prisoner's head caught fire as he was being executed.
- BRIAN TAYLOR