Vol.63/No.38 November 1, 1999
In Brief
Protesters defy troops in Jakarta
Ten thousand people, many of them students, protested in the streets outside the Indonesian parliament in the capital Jakarta October 14. As soldiers and riot cops attacked with tear gas and water cannons, the protesters defended themselves with rocks and petrol bombs. The next day the cops attacked another protest of 5,000 people that closed down Jakarta's business district. Around 30 demonstrators were hospitalized, while 10 cops were injured. Demonstrations also occurred in at least two other locations in Jakarta.
The protesters chanted slogans against President Habibie, hated for his close ties to the dictator Suharto who resigned in May 1998. In the eyes of many, Habibie confirmed those links by calling off a probe into charges of corruption against Suharto.
Okinawans: U.S. bases out!
An increasing number of Okinawans are resisting U.S. military presence on that Japanese island. After the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by a U.S. soldier, protests forced Washington to agree to relocate its Futenma Air Station, provided that Tokyo find another location. Nago, Okinawa, an island city of 55,000 residents, is one of the prospective sites, despite the 1997 vote by Nago citizens against the scheme.
Okinawa makes up only 0.6 percent of Japan's total land mass, yet it houses 75 percent of all U.S. military installations. In Ginowan, the old location of Futenma, 800 people gathered in late September to inaugurate an island-wide organization to protest any placement of the U.S. bases.
Czech privatization stalls
The government of the Czech Republic has come under fire by officials of the European Union (EU) for lack of headway in economic "restructuring" — that is, reestablishing private ownership of banks and industry and moving against social rights that working people won when capitalism was overturned there following World War II. In the early 1990s the Czech government, which is trying to join the EU, planned to sell shares in state companies to private investors. Several years later, the banks are still largely state-owned and control a large part of the economy — a quarter, in the case of the Komercni bank, the largest in Eastern Europe.
Jordanians protest Israeli attack
The government in Jordan has made a formal protest to Tel Aviv after events in Hebron on October 9. On that day Israeli settlers attacked a group of Jordanian parliamentarians as they left the Ibrahimi Mosque in this West Bank city, which is divided between jurisdictions of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government. The settlers have built houses and whole towns on land claimed by Palestinians as their own. Israeli soldiers were present during the incident, the Jordanians said, and had tried to search the members of the group before they entered the mosque. The 80-seat lower house of Parliament in Jordan condemned the attack the next day.
Fujimori hit with nat'l strike
Protesting rising unemployment and Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori's unconstitutional designs to run for reelection, working people staged a national strike October 14. Police helicopters were hovering over the city early that morning and police forces were doubled in working-class communities all over Peru. The construction workers union, teachers unions, the General Confederation of Workers in Peru, and others were part of the strike. More than half of the toilers in that South American country are unemployed or underemployed.
U.S. infant mortality fails to fall
Data released in October by the U.S. Department of Health reveal that last year, for the first time in almost four decades, the infant mortality rate in the United States failed to decline. At the turn of the century 10 in 100 children born alive died before reaching their first birthday. The figure fell every year from 1961 until 1997, when it stood at less than 10 per 1,000 live births. The rate of 7.2 per 1,000 remained static in 1998. Last year also saw a rise in the number of babies whose weight was dangerously low. According to the same report, the infant mortality rate among Blacks is more than double that among their white counterparts.
Wages drop in New York City
Real wages of residents in New York City have declined in the 1990s according to a Fiscal Policy Institute study. Sixty percent of the population experienced a 20 percent decline in income. The gap between rich and poor is greater in New York than in any other state, declared James Parrott chief economist for the institute. Average hourly wages rose in this period, but the median (half above and half below) wage fell 6.3 percent, relative to the cost of living. "In recent years, Wall Street has experienced robust growth, but only 7 percent of New York households have reaped the benefits," read a September 7 article in the New York Times.
— BRIAN TAYLOR AND PATRICK O'NEILL