From Venezuela to Brasil- A continent in revolt!

Globalise Resistance Bulletin April 15th 2002 Globalise Resistance Public meeting this Saturday with Don Baron, activist from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST - Brasil. Weekly information and campaign update. Edited by Joe Carolan (Send all contributions to GR email) This week- 1. Public Meeting with Don Baron, MST Brasil 2. Creativity sessions for Mayday/AntiWar demos 3. Palestinian Solidarity 4. World Bank to West Bank- George Monbiot writes 5. After Barcelona- On to Seville! 1. From Venezuela to Argentina- South America in crisis and revolt Globalise Resistance Public Meeting with Don Baron, full time activist for the MST Brasil- 3pm this Saturday 21st April at the Vietnamese Centre, 45 Hardwicke Street Dublin 1. The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement is the largest social movement in Latin America and one of the most successful grassroots movements in the world. Hundreds of thousands of landless peasants have taken onto themselves the task of carrying out a long-overdue land reform in a country mired by an overly skewed land distribution pattern. Less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of Brasil's arable land. While 60% of Brasil's farmland lies idle, 25 million peasants struggle to survive by working in temporary agricultural jobs. The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) is a response to these inequalities. In 1985, with the support of the Catholic Church, hundreds of landless rural Brasilians took over an unused plantation in the south of the country and successfully established a cooperative there. They gained title to the land in 1987. Today more than 250,000 families have won land titles to over 15 million acres after MST land takeovers. In 1999 alone, 25,099 families occupied unproductive land. There are currently 71,472 families in encampments throughout Brazil awaiting government recognition. The success of the MST lies in its ability to organize. Its members have not only managed to secure land, thereby guaranteeing food security for their families, but have come up with an alternative socio-economic development model that puts people before profits. This is transforming the face of Brasil's countryside and Brasilian politics at large. These gains have not come without a cost, however. Violent clashes between the MST and police, as well as landowners, have become commonplace, claiming the lives of many peasants and their leaders. In the past 10 years, more than 1000 people have been killed as a result of land conflicts in Brasil. Prior to August 1999, only 53 of the suspected murders have been brought to trial. The MST has resisted this repression and has been able to gather support from a broad international network of human rights groups, religious organizations, and labor unions. It has received a number of international awards, including The Right Livelihood Award and an education award from UNICEF. In order to maximize production, the MST has created 60 food cooperatives as well as a small agricultural industries. Their literacy program involves 600 educators who presently work with adults and adolescents. The movement also monitors 1,000 primary schools in their settlements, in which 2,000 teachers work with about 50,000 kids. Globalise Resistance is pleased to host a public meeting with Don Baron, a full time activist with the MST, this Saturday. Don will also be talking about the huge upsurge in struggle in other Latin American countries, from the community councils and the uprising against the IMF in Argentina, to the huge mobilisations to defend the popularly elected government of Victor Chavez against a CIA/ Big Business backed military coup in Venezuela. All are welcome. http://www.mstbrazil.org/ 3pm this Saturday 21st April at the Vietnamese Centre, 45 Hardwicke Street Dublin 1. (We will also be having a social and fund raiser later on that night- stay connected!) 2. Strategy and Creativity sessions in Spacecraft Anti Capitalist BUSH Monster nearly built for Mayday SESSIONs Every Sunday until Mayday from 1pm to 5pm at SPACECRAFT Warehouse at the end of Stranville Street, North Strand, Dublin 1. (Third turn right once you cross the bridge at the Larkin Flats coming from Connolly Station). Globalise Resistance are building a huge Bush Monster for three upcoming events- the national Anti War demo on April 27th, the Trade Union march on May 1st and the Reclaim the Streets Party on the May 6th Bank Holiday. The Bush Monster now has two claws- the invisible hand of the market pulled by sweatshop slaves and workers in chains, and the iron fist of the military pulled by orange boiler suited, sensory deprived prisoners, Palestinians and the war dead. These packhorses will be supervised by the military wing of the United Corporations of America, who will carry the flag of the multinationals either side. The aim is to link the war and imperialism with exploitation and capitalism. We now need need chains, the iron ones preferably, as well as costumes for the military, and the (corporate) branded sweatshop slaves. We have completed the costumes of the the Camp X Ray prisoners, the gigantic flag of the United Crporations of America, and are finishing off the claws and the Bush Monster's head. Nora is also building a fleet of cardboard camoflague tanks, if you can bring down more cardboard! If you're interested in helping out, give us a phone at 087 9032281- STILL NEEDED- Foam Lots of Paint Photos of George Bush Long broom handles/poles Chains, Chainmail, Handcuffs, whips ! Tape Corporate Loge stickers: top 10 hated corporations-send them to us! Needles and thread COSTUMES: Old Combat gear Old suits, ties Uniforms of all descriptions - work ( eg, nurses ) Helmets 3. Protest against Israeli Occupation Tomorrow (Tuesday 16th) 6.30pm Westin Hotel, College Green, D2 Each May 15th, Palestinians commemorate al-Naqba, the day of catastrophe. The Nakba marks a period of brutal terror, when 415 Palestinian villages were destroyed and almost one million refugees created as Palestinians were robbed of their land and forced into exile. The same event is celebrated in Israel in April as 'National Independence Day'. Tomorrow (Tuesday 16th) Irish politicians, overseas diplomats and business representatives are invited to celebrate the occupation with the Israeli Ambassador at 6.30pm at the Westin Hotel (Westmoreland Street, D2). Come along at 6.30 to show your opposition to Israeli state terrorism and to any Irish politician who supports it. Bring friends, workmates, banners and placards. For more information contact 087 7955013. Vigil at Israeli Embassy tonight (Monday) 8.30 Short notice, but there is a vigil outside the Isaeli Embassy in Ballsbridge tonight at 8.30pm - also final reminder of anti-war committee meeting tonight in Bowe's (Fleet St.) at 7pm. from Aoife Irish Anti-War Movement http://www.irishantiwar.org Todays Media Guardian featured an excellent detailed report on the work of IMC Palestine http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,684338,00.html Nice to see the worlds waking up to the potential and good work of Indymedia. From Aidan in Irish Indymedia 4.. World Bank to West Bank The movement written off after September 11 is demonstrating its worth in Palestine By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 9th April 2002 There are two sets of human shields in use in the West Bank. The first is less than willing. The Israeli army, like the terrorist organisations it has fought, has been taking hostages. Its soldiers have been propelling Palestinian civilians through the doors of suspect buildings, so that the gunmen they might harbour have to kill them first if they want to fight back. The second set of human shields has deliberately placed itself in the line of fire. Since the army's offensive in the West Bank began, hundreds of Israeli peace campaigners and foreign activists have been seeking to put themselves in its way. At great personal risk, members of the International Solidarity Movement have sought to protect civilians by making hostages of themselves. It is a display of extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice. It is also the latest incarnation of a movement which just months ago was left for dead. The movement to which many of the peace activists now risking their lives in Ramallah and Bethlehem belong has no name. Some people have called it an anti-globalisation or anti-corporate or anti-capitalist campaign. Others prefer to emphasise its positive agenda, calling it a democracy or internationalist movement. But because they have always put practice first and theory second, its members have proved impossible to categorise. Whenever it appears to have assumed an identity outsiders believe they can grasp, it morphs into something else. It is driven by a new, responsive politics, informed not by ideology but by need. After September 11, this nameless thing appeared to vanish as swiftly as it had emerged. The huge demonstrations planned for the end of September against the World Bank and IMF in Washington became a small and rather timorous march for peace. Most US activists, cowed by the new McCarthyism which has dominated American discourse since the attack on New York, kept their heads down. Commentators dismissed the movement as a passing fad which had rippled through the world's youth, as widespread and as insubstantial as Diet Coke or the Nike swoosh. But those who dismissed it had failed to grasp either the seriousness of its intent or the breadth of its support. The television cameras always focussed on a few hundred young men dressed in black and running riot, intercut occasionally with the wider carnival of protest. But they seldom permitted its participants to explain the sense of purpose which propelled them. So most outsiders failed to see that the commitment of many of the people involved in these protests is non-negotiable. The movement is no more likely to go away than the governments and corporations it confronts. Its survival is assured by its ability to become whatever it needs to be. Last month, 250,000 protesters travelled to Barcelona to contest the assault on employment laws and the public sector being led by Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar. This month, some of them moved to Palestine. Among those in the British contingent are people who have helped to run campaigns against corporate power, genetic engineering and climate change. They were joined this week by members of the Italian organisation Ya Basta!, which helped to coordinate the protests in Genoa. For the movement which came of age in Seattle, the World Bank and the West Bank belong to the same political territory. If the protesters simply shifted as a mob from one location to another, their efforts would be worse than useless. But one of the key lessons this rapidly maturing movement has learnt is that protest is effective only if it builds on the efforts of specialists. Like most of the earth's people, the foreigners on the West Bank first became visible when they began to bleed (five British campaigners were injured last week by the Israeli army's illegal fragmentation bullets); but some outsiders have been working there for decades. New arrivals join long-established networks and do what they are told. Among the bullets and the bulldozers, the movement is discovering a courage long suspected but seldom tried. The protesters have moved into the homes of people threatened with bombardment by the Israeli army, ensuring that the soldiers cannot attack Palestinians without attacking foreigners too. They have been sitting in the ambulances taking sick or injured people to hospital, in the hope of speeding their passage through Israeli checkpoints and preventing the soliders from beating up the occupants. They have been trying to run convoys of food and medicine into neighbourhoods deprived of supplies; and seeking to encourage both sides to lay down their arms in favour of non-violent solutions. They are becoming, in other words, a sort of grassroots United Nations, trying with their puny resources to keep the promises their governments have broken. Perhaps most importantly, the peace campaigners are the only foreign witnesses in some places to the the atrocities being committed. Using alternative news networks such as Indymedia and Allsorts, they have been able to draw attention to events most journalists have missed. They have seen how Palestinians, told by the Israeli army that the curfew had been lifted, have been either shot dead when they step outside or seized and used as human shields. They have witnessed the sacking of homes and the deliberate destruction of people's food supplies. They have seen ambulances and aid trucks being stopped and crushed. On Thursday 28th March one peace protester watched Israeli soldiers in jeeps hunting women and children who were fleeing across the fields on the outskirts of Ramallah, trying to shoot them down in cold blood. And, by becoming the story themselves, as they are beaten and shot, the foreigners have brought it home to people who were dismissive of the murder and maiming of indigenous civilians. The movement's arrival on the West Bank is an organic development of its activities elsewhere. For years it has been contesting the destructive foreign policies of the world's most powerful governments, and the corresponding failures of the multilateral institutions to contain them. Rather than echo the thunderous but effete demand of commentators on both sides of the Atlantic that Yasser Arafat (a man currently unable to use a flushing toilet) should stamp out the terror in the Middle East, the campaigners, as ever, are addressing those who wield real power: Israel and the governments who supply the money and weaponry which permit it to occupy the West Bank. The movement has always been a pragmatic one, as ready to protest against Burma's treatment of its tribal people or China's dispossession of the Tibetans as the IMF's handling of Argentina. In Palestine, as elsewhere, it is seeking to place itself between power and those whom power afflicts. Everyone else on earth is demanding that somebody should do something about the conflict in the Middle East. The peace campaigners are doing it. http://www.monbiot.com 5. After Barcelona- onwards to Seville! A Spanish Anti Capitalist writes- The demonstration of up to 500,000 people 16 March in Barcelona to protest at the EU Summit being held that weekend in the city represented a new highpoint in the anti-capitalist movement that has spread around the world since Seattle. It was also of huge significance given the obsessive pessimism and apparent weakness of the Spanish left. One example: after anot particularly well- organised, 20,000-strong demonstration against the war in Afghanistan last October in Barcelona the soft left successfully argued against any further mobilisations given that "they were bound to be smaller" and hence undermine the anti-war movement. The March 16 demo was against a Europe of Capital and War. Who ís who. Campanya Contra líEuropa del Capital i Guerra (Campaign against a Europe of Capital and War, CCECG): this was the main platform organising around the Summit. It is supported by over 100 diverse collectives, campaigns and NGOs, as well as minority unions, the more radical section of ATTAC, greens, part of EUiA (Catalan version of the CP led United Left coalition IU) and the far left. Ideologically its is dominated by autonomism in its tutte bianche-Zapatista version, leadership being provided by older very ex-far left activists and younger ones from what can be considered the two principal anti-capitalist groupings to emerge over the last two years: the Red Ciudadana para la AboliciÃ›n de la Dueda Externa (campaign to cancel the foreign debt, RCADE) and, particularly, the autonomist Movimiento de Resistencia Global (Global Resistance Movement, MRG). Most of those leading the CCECG pride themselves on the absence of the main parliamentary left parties and unions from the campaign. Foro Social de Barcelona (Barcelona Social Forum, FSB): this groups together the parliamentary left in Catalonia: PSC (Socialist Party); ERC (left nationalists) and the ICV (ecosocialist- right wing split from IU), as well as EUiA and the main unions, CCOO and UGT, SOS Racisme, the Catalan Federation of NGOs (also adhered to the CCECG), and the moderate section of ATTAC. The FSB was set up shortly before the Summit in an attempt to cash in on the movement, but also because of the difficulty for the reformist organisations to work in the CCECG. Not surprisingly, the FSB defends a possibilist approach to the problems of globalisation, i.e. the reform of existing international bodies etc. The development of the movement The growth of the anti-capitalist movement in Spain has to be seen in the context of the general development (or degeneration) of the left and various social movements over the last decade. Since the early nineties, when there were two general strikes organised by the main unions, the workers movement has had a fairly low-key role, and the number of strikes has remained constant (over 500 disputes a year according to the Employers Federation), although there have been some important struggles at a local level (usually over redundancies) and at a national level among civil servants, teachers, rail workers etc. In general, these struggles have not been considered very significant by the media or even the left, the vast majority of which has long written off the working class. The level of class struggle has been fairly low, due mainly to the weakness of the unions in Spain and the high number of workers on temporary contracts (32% compared with EU average of 12%). The fact that hardly anyone, apart from the small Trotskyist groups and the anarcho-syndicalists, give any importance to workers struggles, means that they have been often virtually invisible. The last great social movement was against Spain's entry into NATO in the mid 80s. During the nineties, with the collapse of the far left and the decline of the CP, more and more young people looking for some form of activity were drawn into NGOs, especially those involved in solidarity work with the Third World. The Zapatista uprising was a key factor in politicising some of these NGOs and would be a key ideological influence on the burgeoning anti-capitalist movement. An important forerunner to the movement was the campaign to force the Spanish government of grant 0.7% of its spending to Third World Aid, which culminated in the establishment of camps in Barcelona and Madrid in 1995. These camps were basically organised by NGOs, progressive Catholic groups and other solidarity organisations and won the support of thousands of, mainly young, activists. In March 2000, RCADE organised a public referendum to coincide with the General Elections (the idea was copied from a similar initiative in Sao Paulo), calling on the government to cancel the foreign debt. The referendum, despite being repressed in most places outside of Catalonia, mobilised 20,000 people on the voting tables and a million people voted. On a smaller scale the mobilisations for Prague and Nice proved relatively successful, involving thousands of people in the meetings and protests before and after. The campaign against the proposed meeting of the World Bank in Barcelona in June 2001, was a crucial step forward for the movement, the fruits of which would become clear during the EU Summit this year. For the first time a unified campaign was established involving the whole left, the unions and diverse collectives (in all some 400 groups and organisations signed the campaign manifesto). The fact that the WB cancelled its meeting was a great victory, but obviously limited the eventual mobilisation. The alternative conference attracted about 5,000 people and the demo some 30,000 which was thought to be a great success at the time. March 2002. In the months leading up to the Summit the movement looked in a bad way (something which would make the eventual mobilisations even more sensational). Many of the activists (especially around the MRG) were demoralised after Genoa, which they saw as a defeat because of the level of police violence and the 11th of September added to the gloom. The meetings of the CCECG, which had been set up the previous year, were badly attended, long and boring. For instance, in January, a meeting of the Organising Commission for the demonstration was attended by only 4 people: things did not look good! In contrast, a mass student movement had developed in the autumn against the governments planned University reform law (the LOU), which culminated on 1 December in an unprecedented demonstration of 300,000 in Madrid. It was not until three or four weeks before that suddenly everything began to move. The media in Catalonia were giving extensive and serious coverage of what was being planned by the CCECG and FSB, and it became clear that the mobilisation would be significant (although no one imagined how significant). The week started in spectacular fashion with a massive demonstration on Sunday 10 March of up to 400,000 people in protest against the governments plan to divert millions of gallons of water from the river Ebro to the supply the all-year round agro-business, tourist resorts and golf courses (the PHN) ñ a serious threat to the environment, which local people had been mobilising against for over a year. The demonstration was the highpoint of this campaign so far, attracting 10,000s from the Ebro area, as well as from Barcelona itself. Both the anti-PHN campaign and the CCECG and FSB, presented the 10 March demo as part or the same struggle asthe events of the coming week. During the days leading up to the Summit both the CCECG and FSB organised aseries of seminars, debates, film shows etc., mainly in the university,that were well attended. On Thursday 14th the European Trade Union demo took place, attracting 100,000, itself a magnificent turnout, twice as many as expected. Unfortunately, the majority of the CCECG refused to support this demo, trapped in their autonomist hostility to the main unions "as part of the system" etc. On Friday, the 15th, there were decentralised actions all over Barcelona, including a lobby hunt involving 2,000 activists; a bicycle demo; a largely peaceful autonomist demo to "smash capitalism"; a mock funeral of the EU; wall painting; mass petitioning to call for the cancellation of Argentina's debt; etc. etc.- many of these actions, which mobilised 1,000s, were attacked by the police. Saturday morning saw a series of very successful workshops_ attended by some 5,000 people - organised by the CCECG on War (with a speaker from Globalise Resistance in Britain who went down very well); privatisation; Latin America; financial institutions; etc. and a final round table with speakers from different social movements, including GR and the Italian Social Forum. By Saturday midday things were looking good ñ the most optimistic of us were thinking that 50,000 would be a good turnout. The real figure isobviously hard to calculate. The police said 250,000 (the police in Spain give notoriously low estimates based on how many people arrive at the final destination of any demo),the organisers 500,000 and the press, 350,000 upwards. What is clear is that it was the second largest demonstration in Barcelona since the transition (the largest being a million in 1977 in favour of a Catalan statute of autonomy). To give some idea of its size, after two and half hours, the FSB column (which included the main trade union contingents), drawn up in a side street off the PlaÁa Catalunya, had still not moved off, and decided to read out the manifesto and disband. The demo itself drew together masses of youth but also people of all ages, the vast majority from Barcelona and the surrounding area (dozens of coaches were stopped at the border). Most people were not with any particular group or organisation and the banners present were swamped be tens of thousands walking fairly quietly down the road- like a gigantic mass stroll !! Where organised groups raised slogans these quickly spread throughout the crowd. An attempt by the police to provoke a violent end to the march by attacking the tail came to little, although a few innocent demonstrators got beaten up and there were dozens of arrests. Why was it so big ? The 16 March demonstration represented the coming together of a variety of factors. The extensive and, in general, fairly favourable media coverage meant that the whole population was aware of the Summit and the protests planned against it. This combined with a general opposition to the Aznar government, expressed in recent months by the new mass student movement, the biggest for 25 years, and the mass mobilisations against the PHN, by the growing disquiet over Bush's war and the solidarity movement with illegal immigrants. Events in Argentina have added to people's understanding of the nature of neo-liberalism. Added to this was the widespread aggravation at having one of the main throughways into Barcelona closed down because of the Summit, the massive police presence in the streets and continual provocations of peaceful protesters on the Friday (shown clearly on Catalan television). None of this should take away from the work done by activists at a multitude of levels to make people aware of what the likes of Aznar, Blair and Berlusconi are trying to do and the fact that there was a united demonstration involving practically every left and progressive grouping present in Catalonia . However, above all, it shows the real masses of people who are sympathetic to the aims of the anti- globalisation movement. Both Genoa and, in particular, Porto Alegre (which got equal coverage in the media to the WEF meeting in New York) have provoked much interest in recent months. Before the demonstration an opinion poll showed that 42% of Barcelona's population supported the aims of the anti-globalisation movement after March 16 this had risen to 57%. Onwards to Seville! (GR will be organising transport options at the Don Baron meeting this Saturday at the Vietnamese Centre for all those interested in going. If you want posters to help advertise the meeting, or need any further information- give us a phone at 087 9032281- also feel free to contribute articles and opinions at the website that's up again at http://www.globaliseresistance.cjb.net AND join the interactive updated e group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globaliseresistance/ ) related link: www.globaliseresistance.cjb.net

Created By: Joe Carolan