Seoul pledges to free prisoners
The south Korean government announced July 1 that it
would release a large number of the 500 political prisoners
it holds, without the requirement that they renounce their
political views, the New York Times reported. The prisoners
are to be released by August 15, the 50th anniversary of the
ousting of the Japanese occupation force from Korea. Woo
Yong Gak, who has spent nearly 40 years in solitary
confinement, may be freed in the amnesty. Seventy-four other
political prisoners who were released in March were forced
to sign letters renouncing support for communism and the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The freed prisoners will still be subject to Seoul's "security law." This legislation, often used against trade unionists, bars such activities as listening to north Korean radio broadcasts or distributing communist literature. Seo Joon Shik, a former political prisoner, said, according to the Times, that Seoul is trying to use the release to divert attention from the economic depression engulfing the country. South Korea has been mired by record rates of bankruptcy, bank closures, and unemployment, which is rising at an average of 8,000 people per day.
Indonesian police attack West Papua activists
After demonstrators on Biak Island, 2,000 miles east of
Jakarta, refused to lower the flag of the West Papua
Movement, cops began firing into the crowd with plastic
bullets July 6. They injured 24 people and arrested 180. The
protesters are demanding independence for West Papua, or
Irian Jaya province, which was taken over by Indonesian
forces in 1963. It was previously a Dutch colony. Other
protests over the previous week in Jayapura, the provincial
capital, and in other towns were attacked by police. At one
demonstration a student was killed by the cops.
1,500 protest racist killing in British Columbia
Some 1,500 people of all ages and nationalities marched
in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey June 28 to protest the
killing of Sikh temple caretaker Nirmal Singh Gill and other
racist attacks. Five skinhead members of a group called
White Power have been charged with killing Gill. A coalition
of about 50 organizations that make up the Communities
Against Racism and Extremism (CARE), called the rally. The
Royal Canadian Mounted Police demanded the coalition pay
$17,000 for police "protection" at the protest. CARE refused
to pay, and won support from local unions, community
organizations, and several other groups.
`Free Leonard Peltier!'
Several hundred people, many of them young, rallied at
the Ellipse, behind the White House, June 27 to demand
freedom for imprisoned Native American activist Leonard
Peltier. Peltier was framed-up for the June 26, 1975, shoot-
out between the FBI and the American Indian Movement (AIM)
at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in which two federal
agents and an Indian man were killed. At Peltier's May 4,
1998, parole hearing, he was told he will not receive
another parole hearing until 2008, despite the fact that the
government admits it has no evidence Peltier shot the
agents. Among the many speakers at the rally were Steve
Robideau of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Pam
Africa of MOVE, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and
Socialist Workers candidate for D.C. city council chair,
Brian Williams. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee can be
contacted at P.O. Box 583, Lawrence, Kansas 66044. Phone
(785) 842-5774. E-mail: lpdc@idir.net
Venezuela workers demand raises
Petrochemical workers in Venezuela began an indefinite
strike July 3, demanding higher pay in face of inflation
that is expected to total between 30 and 40 percent this
year. Court workers are also on strike, and public-sector
doctors walked off the job for 72 hours in early July.
Teachers are also threatening a work stoppage.
Venezuelan officials claim they cannot meet the wage demands because of plummeting world oil prices, and say workers should accept austerity during the economic crisis. The government is seeking some $800 million in new loans from the International Development Bank and World Bank. Already 40 percent of the Venezuelan budget goes to pay the government's debt to the imperialist banks.
Kosova: Washington tries to derail independence movement
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. government special envoy to the
Balkans and Clinton administration nominee for U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, has been shuttling between
Belgrade and Pristina, Kosova's capital, along with other
U.S. officials and Russian government representatives.
Holbrooke is pushing for acceptance by Albanians - who make
up 90 percent of Kosova's 2.1 million people - of the
political leadership of Ibrahim Rugova and his Democratic
League of Kosova. Rugova is one the most overtly pro-
capitalist politicians among Albanians who support self-
determination.
"Rugova himself is going to continue to seek a broader base for his goal, which is a negotiated peaceful settlement of the Kosova problem," said Holbrooke while in Pristina July 5, prior to leaving for Belgrade for a meeting with Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. The Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) has refused Holbrooke's proposals so far and is pursuing its armed struggle for independence. Richard Miles, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Belgrade, said he and other diplomats were trying to find out "who can control the guys with the guns - the KLA."
"The ethnic Albanian leadership is confronting this crisis of war and peace without any coherence," Holbrooke complained in Pristina. Washington is pushing for negotiations between Kosovar Albanians and Belgrade that could lead to the return of Kosova's autonomy within Serbia. At the same time, the U.S. government opposes independence and is pursuing deeper military intervention into the Balkans to bring back the domination of capitalism to Albania and Yugoslavia.
- MEGAN ARNEY
Ned Dmytryshyn in Vancouver, Pete Seidman in
Philadelphia, and Janice Lynn in Washington, D.C.,
contributed to this column.
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