I look on the blacks as a set of monkeys, and I think the earlier they are exterminated the better. So said a juror during the 1838 Sydney trial of settlers accused of the Myall Creek massacre of 28 Aborigines.
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Cochabamba is a city with a history of struggle. In April 2000 the people stood up against the privatisation of their water supply, threw out the multinational Bechtel and retook control of the local water company. In October 2003 they joined the thousands of people on the street in El Alto, La Paz and other cities to defend the right of the people to nationalise the countrys gas reserves, effectively forcing, then president and champion of the neoliberal economic model Gonzales Sanchez de Lozada to flee the country.
Security giant Group 4 Securicor has sacked 40 of its workers after they protested the transfer of hundreds of workers to a different corporate entity, which resulted in many long-term workers losing benefits. Last year, Group 4 Securicor attempted similar attacks on its workers in Jakarta, but after security guards who were illegally sacked camped outside the companys headquarters and thousands of people around the world sent messages of protest, Group 4 Securicor was forced to rehire the workers. Demand justice for the Panama workers visit <bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=182> to send your protest letter to Group 4 Securicor.
On January 15, Pedro Zamora, the general-secretary of the dock workers union STPEQ was murdered by armed assassins, who sprayed more than 100 bullets at his car. Zamora had been leading a campaign against the privatisation of the Quetzal port. Zamoras 3-year-old son was injured in the attack. In a January 17 statement issued by the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC general secretary Guy Ryder said: This gruesome killing recalls the darkest days of Guatemalas decades of civil conflict, and the countrys reputation will continue to suffer unless action is taken to root out and punish those who commission and perpetrate intimidation and murder. This murder was planned and premeditated, and appears designed to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamental rights. For information on the ITUCs international campaign to demand justice, visit <csi.org>.
On January 18, the Australian ran a story on a leaked report commissioned by the Peter Beattie Labor state government on the shocking living conditions for Aborigines in Queensland (see accompanying article). Green Left Weekly asked Sam Watson, Murri leader and member of the Socialist Alliance, about this and the ongoing struggle for justice for Indigenous people in Australia.
A confidential report titled Partnerships Queensland was drafted last year by the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy. The report which found there was an urgent need to improve the standard of living for Indigenous people and take immediate and sustained action was withheld from public release before the September state election. Premier Peter Beatties government abolished the department after Labors re-election.
The decision by a full bench of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) on appeal to deny a Victorian cinema manager access to unfair dismissal laws because he was sacked for “genuine operational reasons” is another blow to attempts to hold unfair employers to account.
Testifying to a January 12 US Senate hearing on President George Bush’s new Iraq war strategy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Nuri al Maliki, Washington’s puppet Iraqi prime minister, that he was “living on borrowed time”.
Around 200 pick-up trucks and cars comprised the long snake of a protest caravan making its way along Jakarta’s main thoroughfare, Jalan Thamrin, after a rally outside the Presidential Palace, where speakers called on the people to “withdraw the mandate” of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The occasion for the protest was the anniversary of the mass protests and riots against the Suharto government that took place on January 15, 1974.
The Bush administration’s decision to send more troops to Iraq in the face of rising opposition among ruling-class politicians and pundits, and against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the US people, represents a desperate gamble.
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